Would have been a perfect album if they dropped the overdone cringey guitar solos. Wtf were they thinking?

I really like the increased presence of solos. Cradle had never really been a guitar solo band (there's only like 5 or 6 solos across the first four full lengths), so to have a solo on almost every song on an album for once is a really nice thing to have.

Dont feel guilty man, God will punish anyway for your musical tastes haha.

I was too tempted and I listened to the whole thing. Sh*t! the album is better than what I had expected. It stil lacks more keys(come on Dani, let the girl play more) but the arrangements are good. The best are the guitars which are excellent and diverse and Dani´s voice, which has improved a lot.

I am a fan of Godspeed and Darkly but this album could be the best one since Midian. Another listen and I will order the digipack edition.

This is a guitar album. Too much keyboard usage would just bloat the album and suffocate the guitars, especially considering all the riffing going on there. That's what happened to Dimmu Borgir, and what made that all the more annoying is that they deliberately downplayed the guitars on Abrahadabra to overemphasis the keyboards. You know, like any other lame symphonic metal band would.

Man, you can produce an album with a lot of keys without ruining the metal side. You must just have a good producer.

The problem with Abahadabra is that its a lame album in its entirety but on the other hand, the keys are the best thing in that album. Dont blame them of being the problem, the guitars and compositions were bad. The Mourning Palace has a lot of keys and its a masterpiece.

Oh I'm not trying to deflect the blame for that album being the way it is. I'm just saying that them going that route was a major issue. If you want a really good example of Dimmu having a lot of symphonic stuff in their songs while still keeping the guitars active enough to matter, look at a lot of the stuff on Death Cult Armageddon.

As for Hammer of the Witches, I feel the amount of keyboards on the album is just right. Enough to feel essential, but not too much so as to distract you from the guitars. It's like Dusk and Her Embrace in that regard, as that album too had the perfect balance of atmosphere and guitar acrobatics.

I was always a big fan of Dusk and Her Embrace. It was one of the first extreme metal albums I bought and I love the atmosphere of that record. Cruelty and the Beast was good, but I still liked Dusk better. I found Midian to be ok, and after that I heard the 2000s albums without buying them and didn't care too much for them. But what I heard off of this new album sounded really good. I have heard the three songs released already and can't wait to hear the whole thing. Dani's vocals seem top notch. Sounds like old Cradle but with better production as others have pointed out. Really dig the album art too.

I find that between Dusk and Cruelty, whichever album introduced them to the group seems to their favourite. Cruelty introduced me to them and black metal in general, I still find it very atmospheric and I think the bad production adds to the atmosphere. The lyrics mixed with the photos in the booklet really added to the vibe for me at the time (I was like 12 or something), whoever looked after the whole image done a great job on that album.

Midian was the end for me, I hated that release at the time, too polished and easily digestible tracks, especially with the likes of The Ghost In Her Fog been the hit it was. Although I revisited it lately and its a decent album.

Just listened to the snippets of this and I have to say I am hugely impressed, this sounds quite aggressive, especially compared to crap like Nymphetamine. If this album does use female vocals I hope it'd like Cruelty where it is spoken word of haunting background vocals, not pop singers like the aforementioned track.

This might be the first Cradle Of Filth album I purchase in nearly 15 years.

Just spun the new album for the first time. Man, that was incredibly good. This sounds like a continuation of Cruelty-era CoF, with a modern and beefy production. There's some surprises and I can definitely see what Dani meant with the album sounding 'progressive'; it's similar to the 90s stuff in that the songs flow really well and go through many motions. The album is extremely guitar-driven - surprisingly so - and even on first listen I was kind of blown away at the sheer amount of great riffage on the album. That combined with the added brutality, higher quality of Dani's more extreme vocals and just the right amount of trad metal leanings made me really immersed even on first spin.

I'll need to spin this more for further analysis, but right now, this is the album I knew they had in them. This isn't pure nostalgia for sure - definitely feels like a successor to Cruelty and the Beast, being up there quality-wise, if I might say so a bit prematurely. Fuck yeah.

Thanks for that write-up. I'm pumped to hear it!

Never thought id say this about a Cradle Of Filth album again, but fuck it, i'm amped

The title track from this album is seriously the best song this band has written since the 90s. I cannot get enough of it, similar to my feelings about the album as a whole.

Listening to it now; it rules hard.

Also, they've got the drummer from the Czech Serpent Seed (Blackie's black metal band) and Ashok from freaking Root in the band now.

They've had Marthus for almost a full decade now. Ashok and the other new guitarist Rich Shaw just joined last year.

Huh, Marthus joined for Godspeed, so right when Cradle started to sound good again. Interesting. And I guess they would know Ashok through him.

Those two bonus tracks are pretty damned amazing too. They're in the same style as the rest of the album with the same high quality, so I'm a bit miffed that they're limited to the special edition and inevitably some people won't get to have them. I dunno, I've never been a big fan of limiting certain songs right out of the gate like that, when they're not throwaway tat.

Listening to it at this moment, while enjoying a low-carb can of beer. It's on Spotify!

So far my only real complaint with the full album is I wish there was even more emphasis on the female vocals. But when they are used, they work quite well.

Does anybody have any thoughts about making a playlist that sticks the two bonus tracks somewhere within the main album? It seems clear to me that Onward Christian Soldiers leading into Blooding the Hounds of Hell is how the album "should" end. Two more songs after that, and they just feel slapped on. I'm trying to think of a sensible way to maybe put one bonus track in the first group of songs (tracks 2-5) and the other in the second group (7-10).

This, when both guys joined the band my hopes with the album started to increase. I am glad to see that I was not wrong.

I've tried this out, and I recommend placing "King of the Woods" at track #3 (after "Yours..." and before "Enshrined...") and "Misericord" at track position #11 (after "Vampyre..." and before "Onward...").

This seems to be the best balanced way of doing it without altering the order of the other songs.

Try it out!

My first attempt at a re-ordering was to stick King of the Woods between Enshrined and Deflowering, and Misericord between the title track and Garden Triptych. I'll try your way next.

And am I crazy or were there three reviews here for the new album, but now there are only two? Did somebody delete their own review, or did the mods nuke it?

I noticed that earlier. Someone put up a review a couple days ago and it's just gone now. No evidence I've found to support either a deletion or a nuking.

Yesterday I bought the digipack edition which is quite good. The artwork suits perfectly well the concept of the album. The production is quite good, absolutely focused on guitars, I would like if the keys were a little bit louder but I have not so big complains about it.

I will wait for the next album to see if they add more pianos, haha.

The guitars are pretty damn awesome and the songwriting rocks. Easily their best since Godspeed and perhaps even Midian, it's pretty fresh but a bit too overlong and I agree that it would had been nice to have more female vocals. Still, a very solid and unexpected album from the veterans.

The cover is really impressive, I'm going to listen to it this afternoon and do an opinion...

You may be getting your wish. Dani was asked to pick a favourite song from most of their releases and said this:


Anyway, I picked up the album today after giving it a few listens on Spotify. Still need more time with it, but I like it after the first few listens. Certainly one of their stronger releases since Midian. The new blood in the band certainly seems to have reinvigorated them.

Oh, and that same snippet of interview reveals that they're doing Queen of Winter Throned on the Hammer of the Witches tour, and a few lines later he says they might do Bathory Aria too.

The cherry on the sundae that was today. Just one cool thing happening after another.

I would be a happy boy if this happens, Queen of the Winter is one of my favourite tracks!

They haven't played it in over 14 years. Last time they did it was in 2001. What I'd really like for them to do is to play The Rape and Ruin of Angels, but I don't expect that'll happen anytime soon, if ever.

Okay, I think I've listened to it enough to declare this to be the best CoF album since Cruelty! I really liked Godspeed, but this is way more engaging and consistently strong. Two major improvements: 1. Dani's vocals are in good shape, and 2. the guitar riffs are interesting and engaging. I think people are right when they say that the band needed new blood. I cannot imagine Paul Allender doing riffs like these. They are a bit "basic", and not terribly original, but they are solid. The title track is just heavy!

Good job, CoF! Can't wait to see them live this Autumn!!! And "Queen of Winter, Throned"? Along with "Funeral in Carpathia" and "Rape and Ruin of Angels" (thanks Subrick for the reminder a looong time ago in a "Now playing" post, or something), it's my fave song.

Its nice to hear them kindling back to some of their older methodology and soundscape, I must say. Though, to be fair, I thought Lilith Immaculate was an incredible track and I still do. It seems to get relatively over-looked alongside some of their more recent stuff but for whatever reason that song strikes me as just such a ferocious representation of what Cradle can do and I think its one of their best.

I'm really liking what I'm hearing from this album and I'm loving the keyboard work. The organ in Right Wing Of The Garden Triptych is outstanding.

But it's JUST heavy metal! WTF?!?
When did this band left to pretend to be a Black Metal band?!?
Definitely, not for me.

What does this even mean?

Oops...

LOL!

What does that even mean?

I'm trying to say:

I'm guessing in your own broken English-y way you are trying to say "when did Cradle of Filth stop pretending to to be black metal?". I've always thought they occupied a weirdly popular yet niche market for Gothic/Romantic metal, and that they pretty much severed their black metal elements around Midian. Though they've always kept some small aesthetic musical elements of black metal alive musically.

Anyone notice there's no "Nymphetamines" on this album? Since Nymphetamine each album has had a pop song, e.g.'s: The Foetus of a New Day Kicking, The Death of Love, Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned), Frost on Her Pillow.

The softest songs on this album either aren't that soft or have heavy sections, e.g.'s: Enshrined in Crematoria, Blackest Magic in Practice, The Vampyre at My Side, Misericord.

That's true. And no songs with extensive female vocals either, I think the bonus track King of the Woods has the most.

But Blackest Magick in Practice's main riff is a bit too smiliar to the riff from The Death of Love (~4:30).

BMiP is probably the weakest track on the whole; those slow sections are likely what gave early listeners the idea that was album had somewhat of a Nymphetamine sound (thankfully not true).

I'm in the same boat as many others - Just some great music here, "Yours Immortally," "Deflowering the Maidenhead, Displeasuring the Goddess," "Right Wing of the Garden Tryptich" and "Onward Christian Soldiers" are my favorites.

Also, I loved the synths at the beginning of Misericord - sounded just like something out of Dusk, though once the guitars kick in the riffing and songwriting are pretty boring, so I can see why the cut it from the main album.

If we're talking riff similarity, I think 0:47 of Blackest Magick in Practice is similar to 0:45 of The Vampyre at My Side. Those might be my two least favorite songs on HotW, but I never skip them, since the 'weaker' songs on this album are still pretty solid.

Favorite song is still the title track.