CRADLE OF FILTH The Principle of Evil Made Flesh is in my opinion a truely ground breaking album. The band took their early death metal / black metal demo sound and injected a huge amount of gothic imagery and lyrical content and came out with this master peice that was released in 1994. A lot of people think the band are a bit wimpy or not true black metal but I’d actually have to say they’re more black metal (well at least on this album) than many of their underground counterparts. Black Metal is about rebellion and extremity and this certainly covers both that. The band have done the exact opposite of the entire black metal scene were doing and to me thats true rebellion.
The album opens up with the standard black metal intro, though I have to say it really does set the stage for this, then rips into the song “The Principle of Evil Made Flesh”. There had been some that had experimented with higher pitched vocals but no-one had done anything like the shrieking displayed here. This actually had me worried that the guys vocal chords would come flying out his mouth. It’s immediately obvious this band mean business, great riffs, an usually clean production tone for a black metal and some very tasty and varied arrangements. I bought this on CD at the time it came out and remember reading the lyrics and being very impressed with the depth behind vocalist Dani’s lyrical compositions. There’s a lot of references to the occult (of course) but also classic english literature and even some classic horror films. At the time there was a rising trend of lyrics being a bit more intellectual at the time and this was definitely a fore-runner along with Carcass. “The Forest Whispers my Name” is up next and this is another classic from this band. All the instruments get a chance to show off and it becomes clear that drummer Nick Barker is one world class beating machine behind the kit.
There’ slow bits, more interludes and Keyboard arrangements scattered through out this album. This is probably the most varied and interesting black metal release I’d ever heard and at the time I could not get enough of it. From a business point of view what Cradle of Filth had done was create a unique brand of imagery that sold well on the tee shirt front as well as the recording front and the attention grabbing covers and clothes thrust them firmly into the upper leagues of black metal with their first release.
Every song is an exploration in extreme metal and lyrical genius from Dani. The keyboards and interludes add a lot of variation to the listening experience keeping the listener interested the whole way through this record. “To Eve the Art of Witchcraft” is majestic in the way it is presented with the organ complementing everything nicely. By the time “Summer Dying Fast” comes on the listner has really been taken on an Amazing journey with this album. I can’t recommend this enough.
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