CRADLE OF FILTH: New Album Enters Mixing Stage

British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH recently entered Grindstone Studios in Suffolk, England with producer Scott Atkins (SYLOSIS, GAMA BOMB) to begin recording their tenth CD for a fall release. The band's vocalist, Dani "Filth" Davey, states, "The album has now progressed into the mixing stage, with nothing more than the choirs and female vocals to be scraped into the smelting pot. All the music and my vocals have been committed (as have their protagonists!) to the greater picture and it all sounds truly amazing, rest assured worrisome warts, with the final two songs, 'Succumb To This' and 'Nightmares Of An Ether Drinker', titulary being added to the final roster."

He adds, "The album has been split over two working studios; I have been based at CRADLE's resident studio Springvale under the helmsmanship of Mark Harwood for the last month or so, whilst the music has been captured not ten miles up the road at Scott Atkins' Grindstone studio, enabling us to work parallel to one another and thus aid not only the creative itch, but the speed of the recording process too. Though typically that very first day I started and for the first time in over fifty years, the local farmer decides to dig up two hundred-odd tonnes of earth from the plot outside the studio, and bury it behind a subsiding barn on the hill, using as many clanking leviathans of machinery possible. The utter cad!

"There is little point describing the new tracks as such as it's downright obvious that the usual cliches of 'it's our best one yet', 'it's much harder, darker, faster' (been there, done that) and 'this is going back to our roots' may well apply, just be aware that, if anything, the album has a definite 'Midian' vibe to it, insomuch that it isn't a conceptual album full tilt but more like lots of fabulous little satellites orbiting a main overarching theme. And that theme on this particular slay-ride is one of demons and monsters, both personal and world-enslaving, and the music peoples it perfectly.

"Musically we have tried new things, expanding on our ever-increasing canon to greater, more unbiblical effect with all instruments. Hence the music is unique, almost experimental in its dark places, but at heart still the CRADLE OF FILTH people have come to know, love and hate! Hence also why it's almost impossible for me to paint this new pantheon in anything other than the absolute jet black that I usually do… for no matter how goresome it will inevitably be, we will always have our steadfast detractors like so many fat, unavoidable moths to our ever-growing flame (sits, sighs and weeps in a graveyard!).

"So, as it stands, we have entered the mix stage of this, as-yet-untitled tenth studio album with gusto. Everything is sounding better then we could've imagined, with a decidedly more (super) natural feel to the proceedings, from the slathering Titanomachian onslaughts of 'The Abhorrent' and 'Siding With the Titans' through to the savage, ravaging beast that is 'Manticore' and onto the blood-tinged nocturnal illuminaries that are 'Illicitus', 'Pallid Reflection' and 'Death, The Great Adventure', this album is packed to the Lovecraftian gills with Cradle classics….. I fib you not.

"And with so much already caught hissing and seething in the can, the release date of All Hallow's Eve 2012 seems inevitable, preceded as it should be by the album's first video release and a multitude of press… invariably to cover a multitude of sins!

"There is also news pending of our forthcoming European tour featuring none other than GODSEED and ROTTING CHRIST to whet your proverbial whistles, invading during the last wintry months of this year. Watch the skies for more information on this triple Xcursion very, very shortly.

"So, there you have it, we shall reconvene in a few weeks to survey the wreckage left over from the finishing of the mix. Hopefully then I shall regale you with a permanent album title ('Shitsville', 'Smell the Glove' and 'My First Cradle Album - Complete With Crayons' notwithstanding),final tour dates, a prospective first sneak-peak at one of the songs, the first of many album related competitions, news of the video and updated Summer merchandise. Christ, maybe even a cookery corner!"