Album Review

Cradle Of Filth – Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa

• 27th Oct 2010

I won’t lie, I am not a fan of Cradle of Filth. The genre is a tad too heavy and doom laden for my own liking – But I do at the very least “Get” what it is all about. I just don’t agree with it, and it doesn’t agree with my ears.

But as much as I get the technical side of how to put some of the heaviest of Black and Death metal together – from this standpoint it is also very easy to take apart. The new album does feature a relentless attack on the senses by the band.
Thundering (and highly repetitive) drumming drives each song along as the vocal work screams and croaks away to the content of you happy listeners. There is of course the operatic side of the music which is big in Cradles career trajectory. And whilst the music swells impressively and is often composed beautifully – it isn’t anything you haven’t heard before in terms of song layout.

Hardcore fans will like it a lot, but finding new avid listeners will prove difficult as they remain in the same mould as before. It will all depend on if More of the same is a good thing or not. Cradle remain a strong presence in their field, and perhaps one day can crack their mould, but then if they did that they would probably not be much of an influence in the field any more – except maybe to point out that you can go beyond what is expected of your talents – which they have yet to do.

The biggest problem I have with Cradle of Filth and other such bands within any subgenre of metal is that there is one or two key embers who are more than capable of so much more – and this is highlighted in their clearly classical ear for music. Many of these bands underscore some very beautiful keyboard and even orchestral music that is beyond most people’s capability as a composer. It is just a shame it is used to juxtapose the loud thrash that is centre to each song. Yes it’s all very clever how you can take fairytale-esque music to help define your most devilish of music and it’s been done to death. Perhaps now some of these highly talented musicians and composers will do us non-fans a favour and really flourish in something that could widen their appeal as artists.