CRADLE OF FILTH: Lyric Video For New Song 'You Will Know The Lion By His Claw'

The official lyric video for the song "You Will Know The Lion By His Claw" from U.K. extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH can be seen below. The track is taken from the band's twelfth album, "Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay", which will be released on September 22 via Nuclear Blast.

Commented singer Dani Filth: "This track is one of my favourite songs from the new 'Cryptoriana' album — aside from 'Achingly Beautiful', 'Death And The Maiden' and the title track — due to its very unique flavor and its vehement brutality. The culminative strike is especially very 'Dusk… And Her Embrace'-era black metal…

"Inspired by the works of H. Rider Haggard, a Victorian author who schooled in my home town of Ipswich, this song uses the railroad annexation of the Transvaal in Africa during the 19th century to paint a vision of the greedy machinations of man coming up against a furious, displaced natural foe, thus posing an allegory for the downtrodden, revolting.

"I also have the Latin of this expression tattooed on my arm (due to being the usual supercilious Leo!). The quote was made famous, having been said in 1697 by Johann Bernoulli about Isaac Newton's anonymously submitted solution to Bernoulli's challenge regarding the Brachistochrone curve.

"So… Enjoy. Indulge. Desire. Darken."

"Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay" was recorded at Grindstone Studios, Suffolk, U.K. by the very honorable Scott Atkins, who has been the resident go-to producer for CRADLE OF FILTH for several albums. Dani Filth sat in during the mix, serving up flaming mugs of teas, making the studio couch his own and lending his ears when necessary.

Commented Dani: "The album is deeply infused with Victorian gothic horror and thus the title is a reflection of that. 'Cryptoriana' implies the Victorian's infatuation with the supernatural, the grave and the ghoulish. And the subtitle 'The Seductiveness Of Decay' further cements this attraction to death and the glittering lengthy process of self-annihilation."

The video for the album's first single, "Heartbreak And Séance", can be seen below. Dani stated about the clip: "Working with such an artistic director as Artūrs Bērziņš was indeed an honor, as the video shoot was very extensively planned, involving a myriad of extras and crew, make-up girls and set builders, a crow, some well-behaved snakes and a considerable amount of snow, candles, water, trees, naked bodies, lamentable mourners, as well as all being submerged in suitably gothic landscapes and vistas. And the fact that we travelled to Riga in Latvia to film it was also very unique and interesting. The video itself is fantastic, drawing from the darkly erotic imagery of the album artwork and bringing it to richly technicoloured classical life. We had such a blast shooting it, as the accompanying photos attest to..."

Bērziņš is the mastermind behind the "Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay" artwork, photography and videography — best known for his defiant neo-symbolism raster graphics and oil paintings; postmodern interpretations of classic myths. He has been proclaimed as a "sacred monster of Latvian postmodernism".

CRADLE OF FILTH has also announced its first full-scale U.K. and Ireland tour in years, starting in Belfast, Northern Ireland on October 30.