CRADLE OF FILTH Frontman Explains New Album's Concept

July 28, 2008

England's most notorious and nefarious metal band CRADLE OF FILTH is gearing up to release its darkest, most dastardly album of all, titled "Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder", for Roadrunner Records on October 28. The 72-minute effort, which will have a special edition with an extra disc and bonus material, arrives just in time for Halloween, a holiday that fits CRADLE OF FILTH's blackened, ghostly aesthetic.

"Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder" is conceptual and is based on the well-documented, true-life fall from grace of a shadowy historical figure named Gilles de Rais, a wealthy French nobleman who was one of Joan of Arc's brothers-in-arms. He was best known, however, as a prolific serial killer who mixed prayers with his nightly murders as well as an aspiring alchemist. He was accused of a panoply of crimes, among them heresy, demonology and kidnapping. There's even an extreme fringe sect of historians who question de Rais' true status, with some convinced he was framed.

Regardless of viewpoint, leave it to CRADLE OF FILTH to dissect de Rais' biography, exploring subversive, inflammatory historical subject matter in its lyrics, taking an unjaundiced look at a controversial figure in European history, set to epic black metal music. The band profiled Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory, who attempted to preserve her youth by bathing in the blood of virgins, in the past and now moves forward by framing their latest album around the story of de Rais.

CRADLE OF FILTH's vocalist Dani Filth elaborated on the album's concept, saying, "By far this is our most extreme, dramatic and deeply disturbing album to date. The legend of Gilles de Rais has been given fresh, vampyrical life in this conceptual meisterwerk, swathed in pitch-black magic and a viciousness unsurpassed in the annals of CRADLE history. Screw what our detractors say, everyone who has heard this album has bruised their jaws on the pentagram-bejewelled floor."

"Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder" track listing:

01. In Grandeur And Frankincense Devilment Stirs
02. Shat Out Of Hell
03. The Death Of Love
04. The 13th Caesar
05. Tiffauges
06. Tragic Kingdom
07. Sweetest Maleficia
08. Honey And Sulphur
09. Midnight Shadows Crawl To Darken Counsel With Life
10. Darkness Incarnate
11. Ten Leagues Beneath Contempt
12. Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder
13. Corpseflower

CRADLE OF FILTH's "Thornography - Harder Darker Faster" special-edition MVI (Music Video Interactive) was released in the U.S. on February 5 (one day earlier internationally).

The album comes as a high-quality DVD Audio with plenty of extra tracks, videos, mobile content, MP3s and plenty of interactive bonus content.

Most of the new songs featured on "Thornography Deluxe – Harder, Darker, Faster" were written during the "Thornography" sessions but were completed at a later date.

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