What the f…, Cradle Of Filth?
Yes, I do think that their debut album is a masterpiece and was a very important milestone when it was released in 1994.
I also admit that I love some of their ‘newer’ stuff as well (there’s been awesome tracks like “From The Cradle To Enslave” or “The Twisted Nails Of Fate”), but it’s this album that really fascinated me.
It was in many ways different to the typical Scandinavian Black Metal that was to be flooding the market in the following years. Though I’ve seen some similarities to the early works of Emperor (and those have been an influence to COF, especially after they toured with Emperor in the UK), Cradle Of Filth followed their own style and created a unique debut album. Back then, Dani didn’t use these extremely high shrieks he’s known for today. On their debut, the production wasn’t perfect due to limited resources they had back then, but it was quite good nevertheless and differed . More important, the songs and their atmosphere- they were awesome. I also can’t remember that a band in this genre had such passionate lyrics and seemed so full of devotion to what they were doing.
When I’ve seen them live for the first time (9^th January 1994), their debut album wasn’t released yet.
I’ve been backstage while Dani did his warm-up for the show and was already quite curious how the music sound like (didn’t hear of them before) and liked it a lot. Back then, I used to record every show I visited with a little recorder that I hid in my jacket. I listened to this livetape later on over and over, until their debut was finally released. Hm, I’ll see if I can upload a little excerpt of the show later on, I hope COF won’t sue me
Well, I remember that I didn’t listen to many other albums during the time I received their album. Innovative songwriting, which sometimes rather felt like a huge collection of impressive riffs somehow glued together, lots of breaks and changes (tempo, mood…) going on in many songs… well, those songs simply didn’t become boring. Tracks like “The Black Goddess Rises” or “Summer Dying Fast” simply were awesome. And, rare enough, there’s no weak track on this album. Repeating myself, especially the lyrics sounded very fresh and unique compared to the typical pseudo-satanic or fantasy-oriented black metal stuff that was trendy.
As a huge ANATHEMA-fan back then, I also liked that Darren White (ex-vocalist of Anathema) had a guest appearance there (on “A Dream Of Wolves In The Snow”). Anyway, if you don’t know this album, check it out! And in case you know the re-recordings they did of “The Forest Whispers My Name” and “Summer Dying Fast”, forget about them, the versions featured on THE PRINCIPLE OF EVIL MADE FLESH were much better. Excellent stuff.

Little anecdote; to show their support for Cradle, some guys of Anathema did wear corpsepaint that evening (9th Jan 94) during their gig. Vocalist Darren did use black make-up for his eyes, and bass player Duncan wore full corpse-paint. Check out the pic I posted at the post for ANATHEMA’s THE CRESTFALLEN Ep, if you look at Darren, you’ll note his eye-make up.

Here’s some pics:

I don’t remember who that blonde guy is that ruins the pic

Here’s Paul Allender and Dani Filth, in the back you see Darren White (ex-Anathema) and Paul Ryan (2nd guitar of COF at that time)