CRADLE OF FILTH (COF) Cruelty And The Beast CD (1998)

A concept album about Elizabeth Báthory written by a man who sings like a bat trapped in a pipe organ. Cruelty and the Beast is exactly as deranged as that sounds, and it remains one of the most committed pieces of extreme metal theatre ever committed to disc.

1998, and Cradle of Filth were operating in their own baroque dimension entirely. The blood countess concept gave Dani Filth and company a framework to push the symphonic black metal sound into full gothic horror territory, with Ingénue and Lustmord and Wargasm hitting like a velvet-draped battering ram. The production on this one has a dense, layered quality that rewards headphones and a dimly lit room. Dimmu Borgir and Graveworm were doing similar things at the time, but nobody was doing it with quite this level of grand guignol commitment.

Full length CD, 1998 pressing. UK origin. Genre: Death/Symphonic/Black Metal.

Fans of: Dimmu Borgir, Graveworm, Therion