My personal favorite Dani performance in recent memory:



And to juxtapose that, here's the absolute dirt worst I've ever heard him:

That...makes a lot of sense. I figured he had fucked up his vocal cords pretty hard around that era but I didn't know it was that specifically, nor that it was possible to make such a good recovery from such an injury. I wonder if he's doing anything different technique-wise to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Godspeed is the only new cradle album that I can listen to all the way through, with about an EP's worth of enjoyable tracks IMO from the two subsequent albums. But as others have said I think there's a lot of potential for a fresh sound in this new one, so I'm quite excited.

Dani's really slaying these songs since like one year ago or so. Even that Manticore song posted before sounded way better live. His high-pitched screams sound close to how they sounded on some '97-99 glory days -era live videos, with his mids and growls probably even better now. Also, thanks for the info, Lord, didn't know that.

The new album should have some good vox in it for sure! (If you're into Dani's vocals in general)

And I just found another video of his horrible, horrible vocals from 2006. Same show the Heaven Torn Asunder clip I posted is from.

It seems like the band as a whole has tightened up their live performance too (thanks to the new blood, no doubt) - When I saw them in 2008 they just rushed through all the more atmospheric bits of the early songs and the keyboards sounded like shit. Now obviously I know bands can't afford to be as elaborate when playing live, but you really got the impression they didn't give a shit about the earlier tracks during that tour.

Martin used to play a lot of older stuff way faster than the album, but from my recollections he was particularly bad when it came to Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids and Cthulhu Dawn. He's calmed down considerably in the that area in the last few years, but he still overplays to a distracting degree on some stuff. That was my main issue with Manticore actually; he's an awesomely brutal, fast drummer, but it's like he's trying to accent stuff that doesn't exist in those songs.

I've noticed that despite their shittier 2000s albums being the most popular, they play mostly their older stuff from the first 3 albums the most which is cool since it's obvious they know that's their best shit.

NEW MUSIC VIDEO "RIGHT WING OF THE GARDEN TRIPTYCH": https://vimeo.com/127013325

Holy shit, that ruled. Started off pretty weird with the decidedly not-Cradle of Filth electronics, but once it broke into the actual song parts of the song, it just didn't let up. I am so looking forward to this album now that I really don't know if I can wait two more months for it to come out.

That was... very good! I discovered CoF in 2008, just when "Godspeed..." was brand new, and I have not been this excited about new CoF ever! It was heavy and brutal, but also varied and dynamic. And it was nice to hear good ol' Dany not doing that half-clean pseudo singing from the last album.

This song was more like their old stuff than most of what they've released in the past seven years. It had the tempo shifts, Dani's narration voice, parts driven solely by keyboards, Maiden-esq lead lines, and the savage riffs that made their old stuff so excellent. This is the song I've wanted Cradle of Filth to make for a very long time but never got. Now I got it.

That was actually excellent. Subrick nailed it with the description. The writing seems more ambituous again and Dani's vocals are in very good shape too, as indicated by the shows of late. Serious oldschool 90s-CoF vibes from this one (with a different production sound).

It's like if Cruelty and the Beast had a fat, thick production sound. I'm all in favor of that.

Yeah, I think I'll be pre-ordering the bonus track version of this album.

It's an interesting choice to put female vocals over the blast-beat section (a little after 3 minutes in), but I think it works. Lindsey's vocals sound good, but I wasn't too worried about that department after watching some of their live vids since she joined.

I've listened to it 4 times now and I enjoy it a lot more, it's hard to describe this really and I don't want to call it "black metal" in fear of upsetting someone.

I must say when I first heard the start I had an immense feeling of dread fearing that Cradle of Filth had gone dubstep or pop.

Man, the song is really strong but what the fuck is that ugly ass video? it looks super boring!

I actually think the video is pretty good, although they could've done it without Martin and Dani's ridiculous facial expressions.

huh. i liked that a lot.

Dani didn't make nearly as many doofy faces as Martin did. I swear half the video is just Martin trying to put Galder to shame. Their best modern video is still the Honey and Sulphur video.

Not just the faces, but the boring ass static takes. Dani was decent on the video, but those 'solo' takes and band's general posing was awful. The music rules.

Watching it again I agree, Dani's fine except for when he jumps around like a monkey. Martin looked like he had constipation throughout most of the video. Still, the lighting on the woman's body and the smoke is neatly unique.

I don't really care about the video, but after a few more listens, the song itself sounds really really good. I would be inclined to agree with what was said about the Cruelty resemblances - this song does sound like Cruelty-era CoF albeit with a meatier production sound. The riffing is strong and varied, structurally the song feels a lot less predictable than most of the stuff they've written lately, there's a lot more layering with all the classic CoF elements present. Makes me feel nostalgic in a way, though the production and other things like Martus's drumming makes it sound fresh. I hope the rest of the album is on par.

On the 4th listen, I think it sounds like Cruelty and V Empire.

I wasn't expecting anything like that. Hard to wrap my head around the new song after one listen, but I liked it. I'm definitely hearing the "progressive" bit Dani mentioned a few months back. And if that's the single, I can only wonder what the rest of the album will be like.

Welp, guess this'll be the second modern Cradle album I'll be buying. I already thought of Darkly as a great comeback album, but this blows it out of the water! It really does channel Cruelty, and they're even singing about queens on winter thrones again. Yeah, it's cheesy, but I can never get enough of that stuff when CoF nails it like this. And now I'm feeling all nostalgic (Cruelty was my gateway into extreme metal when I was a wee lad).

I noticed that line too and got the biggest grin on my face when she sang it. Maybe it's a hint at what the set for the next tour will be like. One can only hope, especially since it's been about 14 years since they last played that song.

Yeah I really liked that track a lot. Last record didn't grab me in the slightest, even enough to listen all the way through if I'm honest, but this sounds like it could be great. Just enough attitude in the riffs, drums sound solid as hell and like everyone's said Dani sounds better than he has in what, a decade. And the strings and what have you sound cool too.

Martin looks ridiculous in the video though. I nearly laughed every time it cut to him looking dead at the camera. Who went in and pitched "gurning drummer, bit of softcore stuff, gurn, some wings, softcore, gurn, and so on in that fashion" as a video concept?

EDIT (after Subrick's post): aye, could be a good time to catch them again... nine years since I've done so at this point.

Enjoyed it as well, as far as the video, most of the metal videos Ive seen in the past few years have been dumb anyway. Only one that I thought really stuck out is Ju Ju Bone

I haven't really listened to CoF since Nymphetamine (I heard some songs, but they never did anything for me). This songs sounds pretty good though. Will check out this new album once it's released.

Wow, I am surprised with the general praise. I am happy because I am a long term fan of COF.

Well, the song has very interesting elements. Good riffs and vocals, the arrangements are very good too with some keys and a violin if I am not wrong. This is great because the last album lacked them. Classic COF was always good with the keys.

On the other hand the initial part of the song is a little bid weird with this electronic touch and the female vocals seem to be out of place.

Anyway the song is interesting and I need to listen to it more. It seems that it will be a quite elaborated album!!!

I loved both the song and the video. I was a bit worried that the new album wouldn't sound anything like COF what with the new guitarists, but fortunately I guess I was wrong!

Wow, this is very good. It even had a uncharacteristically technical solo, I'm so sold on this.

The sweeping making up the whole solo was unexpected. That's something they've never incorporated into a song before.

How much you wanna bet there's still gonna be a couple stragglers from a decade ago that'll shit on this song just because it's Cradle of Filth?

I'd like this if the vocals weren't from Dani Filth. Like if it was Jason Medonca or Hal Sinden.

I don't think I'll ever like this band, perhaps the other members have side-projects without Dani.
Not that you're referencing me by that bubble but I'd like to point out I've listened to their discography and yet I can not enjoy their music because the vocals ruin it for me, same reason some people don't like Metallica or Megadeth or yarl singing in grunge, vocals make or break a band in my opinion.

That's an actually legit reason to not get into the band. The people I'm talking about are the (thankfully fewer and fewer) ones who see the name "Cradle of Filth", automatically assume it's awful, and proceed to decry that the band even exists and why are they still making shitty mallgoth Hot Topic crap and Dusk and Her Embrace isn't really black metal and all that nonsense.

Basically the same kind of people that apply bullshit revisionism to Metallica's 80s records because of their 90s records.

The comments at Blabbermouth are mostly positive, but there are a couple "COF has sucked ever since Stuart left"-type insults. Which is fine; when dozens of people are talking about a new song by a somewhat controversial band, can't really expect unanimous praise.

This one makes me laugh:

For fuck's sake, why the constant comparisons to Marilyn Manson? In what fucking planet do these retards live? It's been like this for AGES. YEARS. Name me one similarity between COF and MM. ONE.

Just enough exposure to attract the attention of large numbers of complete twonks.

Kick-ass song. I want more.