CRADLE OF FILTH — The Principle of Evil Made Flesh (review)

CRADLE OF FILTH — The Principle of Evil Made Flesh album cover

Album · 1994 · Melodic Black Metal

4/5 · 2011-08-17
arcane-beautiful

Any aritist knows that a debut album has to achieve certain aspects, one of them being, it has to grab your attention and let you marvel for the full duration of the album. And boy does this exceed.

This being their first full length album, it's a dramatic difference from their early demos and releases. With a new more black metal sound, widely influenced by the Scandanavian musical movement. Now I see major differences musically, but stylisticaly yea it's all their.

It's funny to think that a band from Suffolk are the same as iron clad Norwegians, and looking at the photos in this, it does make me laugh, with all the stupid corpsepaint and metal poses, trying to look as "evil" as possible, but throughout their career, they discovered that them themselves are evil enough, so they got a bit more experimental with their image, which in my opinion always was for the best (you really need to be Norwegian to pull off full blow corpsepaint).

Now as a debut, this is incredibly impressive. To be honest, hearing samples from the album, I was worried that I wouldn't like it, but to be honest, I did, espeically when you just sit down, and enjoy what your listening to, instead of being overly critical.

Now sound wise, it's very raw. The production isnt the best, which gives it that "black metal" edge to it, but I think it sounds really good production wise compared to most black metal recordings, but maybe a bit more tweaking would have made it a bit better.

Now vocally Dani sounds a bit different, and yes you could pick holes at it, but I see it as a vocalist coming to terms with his own powers. He knows what he can do on this album, and at times can make you go "F**kin el". Now he does get better in later years, but as early stages, this isn't too bad. His lyrics are also really good in this album as usual, but he does get better. This album also has some interesting themes, e.g. mythology, thelmatic stuff, Satanic stuff, and other stuff that's interesting.

1. Darkness Our Bride (Jugular Wedding) - Nice intro. Great keyboard arrangement. 6/10

2. The Princple Of Evil Made Flesh - Wow, what an intro. Some really killer punky riffs. Gothic moments throughout are the real highlights.At times the vocals aren't the best, and then at times they're fantasitc. 9/10

3. The Forest Whispers My Name - Nothing compared to the Vempire version. It's still good though, but when I want to listen to this song, the Vempire version will always be the one I look for. This is still a classic song, and one of my all time Cradle favourites. 8/10

4. Iscariot - A nice atmospheric interlude. I like heartbeat sounds. 5/10

5. The Blak Goddess Rises - This is quite a beautiful song at times. I love how it transforms into such a gothic doomy classic and how it changes throughout. I do like the vocals in this song alot. 10/10

6. One Final Graven Kiss - A nice eerie repetitive interlude. 6/10

7. A Crescendo Of Passion Bleeding - Some killer riffs. I love the use of vocals throughout. A bit underlooked in my opinion. 9/10

8. To Eve The Art Of Witchcraft - This has a certain grindcore vibe to it (a slight reminiscence of their earlier stuff). Great punky feel to the song. Amazing twists and turns, and the use of organ is really cool. I like how the song has so many changes in tone and sound. 10/10

9. Of Mist & Midnight Skies - I like Bach's Tocatta at the start, although it's a bit cheesy itself. This is very inspired by My Dying Bride, so expect alot of doom. Great use of vocals throughout. The lyrics obviously deal with thelmatic topics (Crowley and what have you not) 9/10

10. In Secret Love We Drown - Nice trickly interlude with nice water sounds. 5/10

11. A Dream Of Wolves In The Snow - I love the silly Pinhead impression at the start. Pretty interesting arrangement, and Dani's vocals are pretty cool. Short and sweet. 8/10

12. Summer Dying Fast - Great punky feeling. Great arrangement with some killer keyboards. 8/10

CONCLUSION: I really didn't expect to like this album as much as I did. But it's really an achievment, especially for a debut. Not one of my all time favourites, but still a great album.

7.3/10