CRADLE OF FILTH: 'The Manticore And Other Horrors' Mini-Site Launched

A mini-site for "The Manticore And Other Horrors", the forthcoming tenth studio album from British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH, has been launched, featuring album audio, information, gallery, desktop downloads, plus a chance to download the track "For Your Vulgar Delectation" for free.

"The Manticore And Other Horrors" will be released in North America on October 30 via Nuclear Blast Records.

The track listing for the CD is as follows:

01. The Unveiling Of O
02. The Abhorrent
03. For Your Vulgar Delectation
04. Illicitus
05. Manticore
06. Frost On Her Pillow
07. Huge Onyx Wings Behind Despair
08. Pallid Reflection
09. Siding With The Titans
10. Succumb To This
11. Nightmares Of An Ether Drinker
12. Death, The Great Adventure (deluxe edition digipak)
13. Sinfonia (deluxe edition digipak)

Recorded in eight weeks at both Springvale and Grindstone studios (where it was also mixed by Scott Atkins),Suffolk, "The Manticore And Other Horrors" is a testament to the longevity of the 'FILTH, as not only does it reek of CRADLE's (feared or revered) brand of delicious metal vamperotica, but this thoroughly modern album places the band firmly in fresh killing fields anew.

"The Manticore And Other Horrors" itself possesses an altogether new atmosphere for the band, incorporating a heavier, faster NWOBBM punk vibe that is both current and cruel, blended with ornate orchestration and the quirky immediateness of 2000's "Midian" opus.

The album's title can be likened to a bestiary, a collection of stories on monsters - personal demons, Chimeras, literary fiends and world-enslaving entities to blame but a few. "Manticore", the ravening title track, is a song about a beautiful mythological horror that comes to be feared as the disfigurehead of foreign occupation in the Indian provinces.

The songs "Illicitus" and "Pallid Reflection" bear the sweet ingredients of vampirism and lycanthropy; the wicked "For Your Vulgar Delectation" and "Frost On Her Pillow" are woven perversely into grim fairy tales, whilst classic, monumental tracks like "The Abhorrent And Siding With The Titans" both extol tentacular Lovecraftian values.

Speaking to Metal-Trails.com at this year's Wacken Open Air festival, which took place August 2-4 in Wacken, Germany, CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani "Filth" Davey stated about the musical direction of the band's new album, "It's a slightly different direction for CRADLE OF FILTH. It's very fresh for people who appreciate our other works. It's a slightly shorter album, but we've concentrated on melody and different techniques that have been slightly missing from our music — it's a bit punkier, a bit more structured, a bit more singalong, but it's still extreme and it's still CRADLE OF FILTH."

He continued, "It's very hard to speak about it, because it's only been two years since our last record, so if it was so familiar, trying to explain what that record was like and what this record is like… Because there's so much going on in our music — there's symphonic parts and then there's really fast parts and slow, romantic interludes and, like I said, punk and New Wave Of British Heavy Metal in there. But it's all kind of wrapped up in theology and cinematic kind of soundscape. So it's hard to break it down and say, 'Well, this is what we're doing this time that's a bit different from the last time.' But it's good. We're really proud of what we're doing. I think people are gonna be very surprised when they hear it and go, 'Wow, that's CRADLE OF FILTH for 2012.'"

CRADLE OF FILTH is:

Dani Filth - Vocals
Paul Allender - Guitar
James McIlroy - Guitar
David Pybus - Bass
Martin Skaroupka - Drums