Cradle of Filth – Cruelty and the Beast

Well, the new Cradle. I wasn’t really looking forward to this one, as so many bandwagon jumpers are dragging this band around. However, Cradle remains true to itself and has hardly changed since ‘Dusk and Her Embrace’.

Not much to say actually, in comparison with ‘Dusk and Her Embrace’, Or it should be that in tracks like ‘Beneath the howling stars’ or ‘Desire in violent overture’ they’ve clearly used a bit more Thrash influence. Or that they’ve had actress Ingrid Pitt contribute some spoken word parts to two tracks.

The music and lyrics are basically just classic Cradle. The artwork is again as awesome as we’ve come to expect. The album is a concept album. It’s centred around the Hungarian Countess Erzsebet Bathory who most people will already be familiar with (Venom’s ‘Countess Bathory’ is also about her). This story appeals to me greatly as I’m half-Hungarian myself. The only downside I find is that the guitars have become a bit buried.

Oh well, the fans will buy this album blindly anyway and won’t be disappointed. You can easily spend an hour with this album and then just put it on again.