Orgiastic Pleasures Foul

I find it hard to decide if this demo is more thrash or death as it contains many repetitive palm-muted riffs, reminiscent of old-school thrash, but is smothered by death metal grunts and growls. Nevertheless, is is almost impossible to tell that this is the same band that we all know and love (or hate), as a 19 year old Dani Filth sounds more like Gurge from Lord Gore than his vampiric groin-grabbing self from Vempire onwards. :o)

"Bleeding in Heaven" is a short track where not much happens, save for a serene keyboard effect, topped off with a digitised choir voice effect. This track heads straight into "As My Stomach Churns", a chugging death metal piece, with riffs sounding reminiscent of Decapitated's "Spheres of Madness." The song then picks up pace and after 4 minutes or so, gives way to a fast guitar solo, perhaps one of Cradle's longer solos, which isn't saying much!

"Funeral" follows in a similar heavy style. Thrashy riffs with flange effects can be found here, mixed in with slower power chord bursts, and there are no keyboard effects until near the end of the song, when it can be faintly heard adding an accompaniment to the guitar line for a couple of bars. The song then ends with another fast solo.

"Darkly Erotic" is rockier than the first couple of tracks, and contains a melodic solo on top of an eerie keyboard backing, and it sounds ever so slightly familiar to Cradle's more modern sound. Little else stands out on the track, but it isn't bad overall.

"Graveyard by Moonlight" (not to be confused with "The Graveyard by Moonlight" from Dusk... And Her Embrace, is perhaps the first glimpse the audience gets at Cradle's future gothic style, and is certainly my favourite song on the demo. The piece begins with a slow palm-muted riff for the verse, which soon stops and becomes a twinkling keyboard piece which sounds like some 80s synth instrumental, but is pleasant to listen to all the same. Then the metal returns and the listener is thrown back into a slow solo over a much more prominent keyboard sound, similar to the repetitive styles used on The Principle of Evil Made Flesh. The rest of the song is then played at a faster, more thrashier, rate and is an anti-climax after the song's middle section.

"So Violently Sick" contains fast early Metallica-style riffing, but then returns to a more old-school death metal feel, complete with double-pedalling. There is nothing particularly special about this track, and is is devoid of any kind of effects whatsoever; just plain thrashy death. After around 4 minutes a tuneful riff emerges, along with another solo.

"Foul Winds Threaten" is the final piece, and is, like many of Cradle's first and last tracks, purely instrumental. This one is short and repetitive (note the 80s keyboard sound again!), with a slow marching drum in the background. Over the top, a guitar (?) effect is used to sound like screaming or wailing, but it is unclear. Pointless, and belies their talent for producing classical instrumentals.

This is nothing like Cradle of Filth's modern sound and fans new to the band's material might not appreciate this demo as, barring "Graveyard by Moonlight", there are next to no similarities to their modern sound whatsoever. On the whole it is a good piece of thrash/death, and earns a straight-up 70%, and die-hard fans of CoF from their early days will lap this up. Just don't expect anything spectacular.