CRADLE OF FILTH Hammer Of The Witches CD (2015)

Dani Filth once described this album as a return to the coven, and he wasn't wrong. After a few records that left the faithful divided, Hammer of the Witches landed in 2015 like a blackened boot through a stained-glass window, all orchestral chaos, snarling double bass, and gothic horror imagery cranked to genuinely uncomfortable levels.

This is Cradle of Filth firing on all cylinders again, leaning hard into the symphonic black metal architecture that made them one of the most polarising and important extreme metal exports Britain ever produced. New guitarists Marek Šmerda and Richard Shaw brought a renewed ferocity, and the result is a record that rewards headphones in a dark room and punishes the faint-hearted. The digipak edition includes two bonus tracks, which is reason enough to own the physical copy over whatever algorithm is feeding you tonight.

CD digipak. Full length album. Two bonus tracks. UK origin. Fans of: Dimmu Borgir, Moonspell, Graveworm, Rotting Christ.