So Cradle of Filth are back with their iconic and lucky 13th album. If for many the number thirteen is something mystical and occult, it must be the same for the Cradle Of Filth.
Titled Existence Is Futile, the English group’s newest full-length sketches from traditional Lovecraftian inspired stories and mythological themes, to instead focus on tackling the gates of reality and existence, the dread and fear behind death and the unknown. To keep the concept somewhat loyal to previous literary material, the record is magnified through an apocalyptic nature as Dani Filth takes inspiration from the one and only Aleister Crowley’s view on life and darkness. By observing the artwork representing the LP, one can clearly identify ghoulish figures enslaving and devouring human beings, with a destructive burning background signifying the apocalypse in a more physical manner in comparison to the philosophical thoughts conveyed throughout the record.
The images speak loudly when we talk about Cradle Of Filth, and since the 2015 album Hammer Of the Witches, the band has been directing black metal in a way to revive the harmony and individuality that marked the band’s early years with works such as The Cruelty and the Beast and since mid-2015 elegantly paves the way for grand sections of theatrics via symphonic leads, gothic charm and manic blackened undertones.
With a mix of high culture and lyrically well done, Existence is Futile is a milestone in the trajectory of Cradle Of Filth. It will link the instrumental technique that has been constantly perfected since Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder (The Life and Crimes of Gilles de Rais), I wouldn’t say we have a themed album, but we have an erudite black metal opera basically divided into three parts . An odyssey about the lightness and inevitability of the imminent end of life and the continuity of life by material insistance, which gives us the establishment of a new era since the establishment of the apocalypse and showing that its impact is not only metaphysical, but material and eschatological. .
I could describe in this review all the smallest details that make this album unique like the harmony and melancholic intro of “The Fate of the World on Our Shoulders” that flows into a thrash/black riffs and vampiric screams that show what the album came for , or I could cite the somber and erudite choirs of “Crawling King Chaos”, but that would limit me because the sensory experience of this album that shines with a powerhouse of impeccable riffage that simultaneously makes you headbang and send shivers down your spine.
We should keep in mind that Cradle Of Filth has evolved and paved its own path since “Dusk and her Embrance” and that Mr. Filth is the trailblazing mastermind of a unique niche that can evidently be imitated yet never ever be replicated. So today we have a consecrated band with a phenomenal album and if 13 is the cabalistic number or an unlucky number for many….here thirteen is the lucky number.
A highlight of the part is the female voice of Annabelle Iratni who replaced Lindsay Schoolcraft who maintained the same standard of quality and interpretation of the songs. I personally think there is a greater gothic and harmonic influence on this album than on previous ones and that’s an interesting point to note as we listen to this new album and previous discography.
Here we have the absence of songs centered on a devilish and anti-Christian theme, which is not a demerit, but a mark of the evolution and artistic expansion of a band that knew how to make the apocalypse a high-level vampire gothic opera.
RATE: 666/666
