Here comes the sixteenth for Cradle of Filth!
After a few changes from the previous album, the band led by Dani Filth (vocals, Devilment), Marthus (drums, Inner Fear, ex-Masterplan, ex-Titanic), Daniel Firth (bass, ex-Man Must Die, live for Saor) and Marek Ashok (guitar, ex-Root, ex-Inner Fear, ex-Titanic) make official the arrival of Donny Burbage (guitar, Aether Realm) and Zoe Marie Federoff (keyboards/vocals, Catalyst Crime, ex-Insatia) with the release of The Screaming of Valkyries on Napalm Records.
The band attack with full force on the impressive jerky To Live Deliciously, a composition for which a relatively old-school video was shot, and which shows the band’s return to the albums of the early 2000s, whether in terms of violence or the melodious atmosphere disturbed by the vocalist’s screams. It’s worth noting that Dani keeps to the macabre tones, while her comrades provide the rhythmic backdrop, supported by Zoe‘s backing vocals, before the band moves on to Demagoguery, which remains in heavy Gothic tones. The keyboard takes on a more prominent role, sometimes accompanying the guitars on the more heady moments, but the track is split in two by a soaring break before resuming and leading us to The Trinity Of Shadows and its fairly simple riffs that feed the airy tones between two lively accelerations. There are also a few passages where orchestrations give the wave of fury a much more majestic touch, before the atmosphere takes on a much more melancholic veil with Non Omnis Moriar, whose vocal duet is of the finest effect and testifies to a real cohesion within the new line-up. In contrast to White Hellebore, which gets off to a flying start with some motivating but quickly darkening heavy elements, the instrumental track is fairly calm, and the musicians’ dynamism can be felt even in the slower moments, giving the track a rather different feel. The sound eventually rubs off on You Are My Nautilus, which retains the present leads but is overall heavier and more mysterious before fading out to let Malignant Perfection display its waves of false quietude in a hurricane of thicker, fiercer vivacity at times, usually heralded by Dani‘s screams. The album moves on to Ex Sanguine Draculae and its haunting allure, but a few harmonically-charged accelerations are also on the agenda, giving the composition a sometimes crazy rhythm, but the album already reaches its final composition, When Misery Was A Stranger, where wilder, even Old School influences can be found, notably thanks to the unleashed blast that is sometimes brought to bear on the furious riffs, but once again the various influences enrich the charge, and offer it to sport elements that are clearly more accessible or catchy.
While some might criticize Cradle of Filth for not being trve, the band has never hidden its attraction to diversity, which reaches its climax on The Screaming of Valkyries. The album is ever further away from Black Metal, but ever more prone to experimentation!
80/100