CRADLE OF FILTH — Dusk and Her Embrace (review)

CRADLE OF FILTH — Dusk and Her Embrace album cover Album · 1996 · Symphonic Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Warthur
Cradle of Filth's second album displays a massive and welcome improvement over the first. Though they pull off the coup of having Cronos from Venom recite a speech towards the end of the album - what better way to declare yourselves the new masters of British black metal? - the band actually move away from the pure black metal roots of their first album and towards an intriguing hybrid style combining the best of second wave black metal and gothic metal, much as other bands in the gothic metal category would combine gothic music and doom or death metal.

Dani Filth's vocals here take on their characteristic style, alternating (or occasionally combining) low-pitched intonations with incredibly high-pitched shrieks which would serve well on any black metal release by the Norwegian masters of the genre, whilst the use of female vocals and synthesisers does wonders for bolstering the album's gothic credentials - as do the lyrics, which once again revolve around eroticism and pagan Goddess-worship. As a whole, the band prove adept at shifting between metal styles at the drop of the hat.

The only thing which prevents this album from attaining a perfect score is the somewhat average production values, but on the whole it's a decent listen, and much more interesting than their debut.
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