Video Premiere: CRADLE OF FILTH's 'Blackest Magick In Practice'

"Blackest Magick In Practice", the new Sam Scott-Hunter-directed video from British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH, can be seen below.

Comments the director: "There's dark madness in this video. 'Blackest Magick In Practice' is a deeply tragic tale of lost love. It's the grief stricken insanity of trying to bring back that loved one from the dead; desperately trying to hold on to that person who's gone, even if that leads down a dark and gruesome path.

"I don't want to give it all away, but I will say that the hardest part of the production was getting hold of a human ear. I wanted to convey the power of the band too, in amongst the romance, madness and magick.

"Behind the imagery of the lyrics is a great and powerful metal band of amazing musicians, and I hope people can feel the intensity of the band when they watch this. It is intense viewing. There should be a bit of madness in the video, because there's madness in this song."

"Blackest Magick In Practice" is taken from CRADLE OF FILTH's eleventh studio album, "Hammer Of The Witches", which was released on July 10 via Nuclear Blast. The CD marks the first release with CRADLE OF FILTH's new lineup, which includes new guitarists Ashok (of Czech groups ROOT and INNER FEAR) and Richard Shaw (of English acts EMPEROR CHUNG and NG26).

Asked what inspired the songs for "Hammer Of The Witches", CRADLE OF FILTH singer Dani Filth told HorrorNews.net: "It was an amalgam of lots of different things, I suppose. When I began writing the album, I had a new clip of about four songs before I started coming up with an idea. You could say it is well hilted in the medieval. I mean, there is a track called 'On Christian Soldiers', which is about the first crusade and draws comparison with modern day — as do a lot of the songs, but I think the medieval scenario is the vibe that suits the material. I was working one day in my office and I have a library of books. I saw the 'Malleus Maleficarum', which is the medieval, gothic book about witchcraft that translates to Hammer Of Witches, meaning it was a tribunal, like a punishment for witches, and the book itself was like a weapon against witchcraft. Obviously, hundreds of thousands people throughout Europe were put to death throughout the inquisition period and this book was partly responsible for that, I should imagine. But, anyway, we saw it as the weapon being in the witch's hand. It is retribution, revival, reprisal, revolution and revenge. We can say that, because we are not a Christian band. So that was our interpretation of that. Then those things of revenge, revival, demonology, witchcraft which were also influenced by the area in which I live in England, which is known as a witch county."

Regarding whether he looks at "Hammer Of The Witches" as CRADLE OF FILTH's finest effort so far, Dani told RockSverige.se: "That's a little hard to say. We never come out of the studio unless we are 100 percent happy. We're really proud of this one. Whether it's our finest album? Well, at least for the last ten years, I would say. That seems to be the premise and the opinion of the journalists I've spoken to. Whether it's our best overall, I don't know. It needs to sink in and people need to hear the album with the special-edition tracks as well. Those particular songs didn't even know they were gonna be special-edition songs. The track list wasn't carved in stone 'till close to the end of the mix, actually. It was a band thing and we had to have two songs as bonus material and everybody had good points about all of them, but two didn't make the grade. But somebody might prefer one or both of the songs. Unfortunately, it's the way it is. We actually turned down three songs that were written for the album. We made a conscious decision not to spread ourselves too thinly. One of the tracks was one of my favorites, but that just proves there's democracy in this band. Everybody contributed and that's testament to that the album is killer."

CRADLE OF FILTH will embark on the "Inquisitional Tourture" North American headlining tour in January. Support on the trek will come from BUTCHER BABIES and NE OBLIVISCARIS.