Cradle Of Filth - Nymphetamine

*=Staff's pick	Satyriasis Gilded Cunt Nemesis* Gabrielle Absinthe With Faust* Nymphetamine (Overdose)* Painting Flowers White Never Suited My Palette Medusa And Hemlock Coffin Fedder English Fire* Filthy Little Secrets* Swansong For A Raven* Mother Of Abominations Nymphetamine Fix (Bonus Track)

Genre	Gothic Black Metal	Dani Filth	Vocals
Tracks	14	Paul Allender	Guitar
Runningtime	75 Min.	Germs Warfare	Guitar
Label	Roadrunner	Herr Pubis	Bass
Release	29 Sept. 2004	Adrian Erlandsson	Drums
Country	England	Martin Foul	Keyboards
Similar artists	Dimmu Borgir, Tristania, Susperia

Death, black or goth - the opinions differ about Cradle Of Filth and they are hard to be placed solely in any of those genres if you really must categorise them. Their music contains most of everything and sounds like death metal with extremes at both the direction towards black as well as goth, at the same time as it can have the feeling of being the soundtrack to a motion picture.

After the intro with the nice name of Satyrias, all hell literally breaks loose with fury and aggression in the track Gilded Cunt. And with that kind of titles you can be sure of that there is a parental warning sticker on the album. Nymphetamine sounds to me to be having more of a thrash approach then the earlier stuff I have heard, and the riffing that ends the track Nemesis is nothing but brilliant in my ears. Even if the pace is furious and the aggression level is high. Cradle Of Filth always manage to have an epic feeling that lies resting over their songs, and on Nymphetamine there is no exception.

With the title track, that has a guest appearance by Liv Kristine Espenaes Krull (Leaves' Eyes, ex-Theatre Of Tragedy), you have one of those songs where they mix beauty in the melodic melody and the wonderful female vocals with the fury and aggression they also possess. At first I felt there weren't enough of those elements on Nymphetamine, but then I started to like the more pure death metal parts increasingly and with the more thrashier elements I don't feel that the music really lacks anything. The music is filled, apart from hellish drumming and furious speed, with lots of great riffing as well as harmonies and solos, and those elements take away the most aggressive edge and make Cradle Of Filth really pleasant to listen to. Filthy Little Secrets is a very good example of that.

Cradle Of Filth can be both poetic and gruesome at the same time with their evil music, and even if Nymphetamine has a more direct sound it is not exactly easy-listening or free from complexity. The album is partly orchestrated and yet less symphonic than their last album Damnation And A Day (2003), but it still comes with an high and mighty attitude. All is very carefully and well done and you cant complain about their instrumental skills, but they could benefit from having less songs. The album with its seventy-five minutes is a bit too long, it gets repetitive in the end and apart from the title track it is hard to find songs that sticks out. Each and every of the tracks is good on its own, but when all is played after another it is furious minutes of listening and you can hardly tell one song from the other at times, not until you have been going through them numerous times.

One can have his opinions about the voice of Dani Filth, as it is of the light screaming kind as of put in severe torture, it shouldn't work but in some strange way it does. And when he sings or more of speaks with an obnoxious high pitch it definitely shouldn't work, but again it does. Normally I would hate that kind of poor growls, well it isn't growls really, it is more of screaming, but in the atmosphere that Cradle Of Filth creates it suites perfectly and I have learned to love it.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	6	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas