CRADLE OF FILTH Frontman Issues Update

Vocalist Dani "Filth" Davey of British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH has posted a lengthy update on the band's MySpace blog. A couple of excerpts from the entry follow below.

"The video for 'The Death Of Love' is now finished and [can be viewed below]. The premise for this track is very much along the same lines as the lyrics for the song, featuring a defiant Joan of Arc and a brooding Gilles De Rais slung about an evocative dungeon band performance. There is definitely a very sinister vibe to the proceedings and some people have already compared it to 'Her Ghost In The Fog' for its eerie cinematography.

"On the live front, this last month or so has found COF playing several festivals across Europe in the midst of tying up a few loose ends and beginning to unravel others. Firstly, there was the weekend at the end of June that found the band driving all the way down to the North of Spain to play the Kobetasonik festival in Bilbao, strangely enough in the drizzle again. Here we hooked up with bands like GOJIRA, CRUCIFIED BARBARA, HOT LEG (Justin Hawkins is a really decent bloke in the flesh),MACHINE HEAD, DEVILDRIVER, CATHEDRAL and MARILYN MANSON, to name but a few, having received a police escort into the show for getting lost, with no real band casualties other than a totally inebriated Charles and a free bar that came under thorough attack from our unholy shambling entourage.

"The next day we drove to perform at Hellfest in the South of France, albeit briefly, as we arrived a few hours before we played and left shortly afterwards, with barely enough time to hook up with our friends (and fiends) in GORGOROTH, ORANGE GOBLIN, IMMOLATION and the MISFITS. Suffice to say the show was awesome, the main stage crowd thoroughly getting behind us as we blistered (the sun was out in full force) through a heavy fifty-minute set.

"Next on our summer festival agenda was supporting METALLICA in Sweden which, as you can imagine was some honour...being lucky enough to play before them, THE CULT and MACHINE HEAD on the main stage. It certainly wasn't the biggest festival in the world, but situated in the pine-drenched depths of the Swedish countryside, it certainly was the prettiest. In fact, being six hours drive away from the nearest airport meant a lengthy journey for all concerned, though for the main entourage (the crew, Martin and Ashley all flying in separately from their respective homelands) it was made a trite longer when our tire exploded as we zoomed down the highway, causing us to veer off onto the rocky hard shoulder. We were lucky; this was the same motor-horror-scenario in Sweden that METALLICA had suffered back in the day. But needless to say an hour later, having had a tow-truck out to fix the wheel, we were on our way again, destined for some holiday chalets in the midst of a wood.

"Anyway the show was brief because of the aforementioned sudden shift to bad weather right before we played; the stage having to be swept clear of water first. But when the rain abated five minutes into our set there came a refreshing resurgence and what followed was a swift but punishing set. Afterwards was spent between the back stage area where we accumulated with LAMB OF GOD, MASTODON and ENTOMBED, and the side of the stage on a small hillock watching the rest of the show unfurl. The catering was great, the people friendly and the beer copious. I even got to meet Kirk Hammett and have a bit of a chat. It was a bloody good outing despite the tortuous travel.

"Moving onto our current plans as a band, we are starting to throw around ideas and structures for a new album. Even though everything is at an embryonic stage at present, with a full band contributing towards the writing process, our aim of being in the studio by November is not as far-fetched as it would at first seem."

Read the entire blog entry at this location.

"The Death Of Love" comes off CRADLE OF FILTH's new album, "Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder", which entered the German Media Control chart at position No. 37. The CD sold a little over 11,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 48 on The Billboard 200 chart.

"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.