La banda británica de black metal Cradle Of Filth se creó en 1991. Originalmente comprendida por el vocalista Dani Davey, el guitarrista Paul Ryan, su hermano Benjamin a los teclados, el bajista John Richard y Darren a la batería.
Un año más tarde graban su primera maqueta "Invoking the Unclean" a la vez que fichan al guitarrista Robin Eaglestone. Poco después graban una segunda demo, "Orgiastic Pleasures"; sin embargo, cuándo Richard deja la banda, Eaglestone asume el papel de bajo, dejando el camino libre al guitarrista Paul Allender.
En su siguiente maqueta, "Total Fucking Darkness", la batería pasa a cargo de Nicholas Barker, y con ella consiguen firmar con el sello Cacophonous, publicando su álbum presentación "The Principle of Evil Made Flesh" a mediados de 1994.
El lineup vuelve a cambiar cuando los hermanos Ryan dejan el grupo para unirse a "Blood Divine", y poco después les sigue Allender. El hueco es cubierto por los guitarristas Stuart Antsis y Jared Demeter y para los teclados escogen a Damien Gregori que debutarán en la presentación del mini Lp de 1996 "Vempire (or Dark Faerytales in Phallustein)".
Para el siguiente larga duración, "Dusk and Her Embrace", editado ese mismo año, Gian Pyres toma el lugar de Demeter, y más tarde, Gregori fue reemplazado por el teclista Les Smith; de todos modos, el álbum amplió de manera sorprendente el culto al grupo.
El siguiente trabajo de Cradle Of Filth, "Cruelty and the Beast", aparece en 1998, y su reputación sigue creciendo, gracias en gran medida a unos conciertos muy teatrales, estilo Alice Cooper o Marilyn Manson.
Dos años más tarde el grupo vuelve de la mano del Ep "From the Cradle to Enslave", disco en el que debuta el baterista Adrian Erlandsson. La banda, que ya marea de tanto cambio, vuelve a fichar los servicios de Paul Allender y Martin Powell, ex-Anatema, reemplaza a Smith en los teclados en el siguiente trabajo "Midian", que sale a la venta en el Halloween del 2000 y es calificado como el mejor álbum de la banda hasta aquella fecha.
Tras el lanzamiento de "Midiam" Cradle comienza a ver germinar su idea de crear su propio sello discográfico. Nace así Abracadaver. El primer proyecto del sello es "Bitter Suites to Succubi", que contenía
cinco nuevos temas además de cuatro de sus mejores temas antiguos completamente
regrabados y una pista de CD-ROM con clips.
Su último lanzamiento visual, "Pandaemonaeon", estuvo 7 semanas en las listas de vídeos del Billboard. Su show en directo se convierte en uno de los montajes más espectaculares y controvertidos de la historia, y a través de la tecnología de Internet, llevan su extravagancia teatral y la banda sonora de terror de su música a un montón de hogares y oficinas, batiendo el récord de este tipo de emisiones.
10 cosas que necesitas saber sobre Cradle Of Filth
1. Cradle Of Filth han protagonizado su propia película de terror: "Cradle Of Fear".
2. "La banda de metal que más vende es Cradle Of Filth, son británicos y muy populares en Europa" - Wayne Clarke, director de Blue Grape, compañía de merchandising de grupos como Machine Head, Slipknot y Fear Factory.
3. COF aparecieron en un documental de la BBC que se distribuyó internacionalmente - "Living With The Enemy".
4. Es la banda de metal sobre la que más se ha escrito.
5. Firman un contrato editorial con Universal.
6. "La campaña de marketing online de más éxito" (Music Week).
7. "Midian" entró en listas en el Reino Unido, Holanda, Bélgica, Suiza, Finlandia y directamente al número 30 en Alemania.
8. Consiguieron batir el récord de asistencia en su firma de discos en la Virgin Megastore de París.
9. Su vídeo "Pandaemonaeon" estuvo siete semanas en la lista de vídeos del Billboard.
10. Utilizan más de 100 galones de sangre en cada vídeo
Cradle Of Filth Biography
These are dark days. We live our lives cowering in the shadow of a future
black and bleak, snatching all too brief glimpses of romance, hope and humanity,
burdened by monochrome drudgery and the stupidity of mankind. The shit keeps
hitting the fan and we're all getting splashed. That's why those of us who
live for the moment need a soundtrack that provides both unhindered escapism
and a heightened, tangible sense of reality's uplifting sensual power. That's
why we need Cradle Of Filth more than ever. This is a band that caters for
the filthy little secrets inside all of us, eliciting those exhilarating erotic
and animal charges that make our time on this planet worth living. Prepare
yourself for a hefty shot of 'Nymphetamine'…
Cradle Of Filth first burst into the choking glow of Hell's spotlight in the early 90s, when the UK metal scene was striving to produce a fitting response to the purposeful malevolence and youthful intensity of the Norwegian black metal scene, with its church burnings, death threats and random acts of extreme violence. Smarter, more ambitious and more fiendishly creative than any of their Norse contemporaries, Cradle emerged in 1991 from the bat-infested Suffolk shadows with a fully-formed and multi-faceted sound; a cunning amalgam of venomous black metal, high gothic drama and pure British steel that immediately elevated them above the malnourished aspirations of their peers and grabbed the attention of both the global metalhead legions and the controversy-starved music press in the UK. A raw and belligerent debut album, 1994's 'The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh', ensured that the band's now trademark bombast and arrogance were proclaimed loud and clear and within months Cradle Of Filth were firmly established as the UK metal scene's sharpest and bloodiest blades. The subsequent decade brought untold success and a further consolidation of the band's inestimable sonic prowess, with a series of bold and audacious albums, a never-ending stream of dullard-baiting merchandise (including the infamous 'Jesus Is A Cunt' shirt) and a relentless procession of eye-popping live extravaganzas. 1996 saw the release of the hideous, blistering 'Vempire' and its extravagant, lascivious follow-up, 'Dusk & Her Embrace'. Two years later, 'Cruelty & The Beast' took Cradle's popularity to new heights, revealing a new sophistication and maturity in the band's songwriting and a greatly enhanced degree of musicianship that belied the never-ending litany of line-up changes that, until recently, have been a fixture in the Cradle story. The 'From The Cradle To Enslave' EP and the masterful, epic 'Midian' (2000) followed in close succession, reaping widespread plaudits and applause from all quarters. The new century was ushered in with 2001's 'Bitter Suites To Succubi', a stopgap compendium of old and new material. 'Live Bait For The Dead', the first official audio document of Cradle Of Filth's notoriously ferocious and hallucinatory live show appeared in 2002 and, as the band enjoyed a brief spell in major label land, the grotesque majesty of the orchestrally twisted 'Damnation And A Day' made 2003 their most victorious and creatively remarkable 12 months to date. Visual offerings came in the form of DVDs 'PanDaemonAeon' and 'Heavy Left-Handed and Candid'. And so to Cradle Of Filth in 2004. Ten years on from the ominous eruption of their debut album, the UK's premier merchants of darkness have regrouped and found a new home at Roadrunner Records, a label with a suitably metallic past, present and future. After spending the majority of 2003 on the road, performing over 100 shows and hitting a rich vein of creative endeavour as a result, the current Cradle line-up - founder member/frontman Dani Filth, guitarists Paul Allender and James McKillbroy, keyboard maestro Martin FoulPowell, bassist Dave Puybius and drummer Adrian Erlandsson - are now putting the finishing touches to their latest and greatest opus, 'Nymphetamine'; a foul and frenetic compendium of shiny new compositions that takes the band's unmistakable sound off on a variety of strange and fascinating new tangents. With astonishing artwork from incredibly talented aesthetic prodigy Matt Lombard and a bludgeoning production courtesy of Rob 'Anthrax' Caggiano and mix-master Colin Richardson, 'Nymphetamine' is destined to be the most addictive jewel in Cradle Of Filth's incomparably daemonic canon, with songs bearing such intriguing titles as 'Filthy Little Secret', 'Mother Of Abominations', 'Nemesis' and, most charmingly of all, 'Gilded Cunt' (a song debuted on stage at the band's recent show-stealing appearance at the Download festival) seemingly custom-built to reconfirm the band's status as undisputed champions of sumptuous, black-hearted melodic devilry and unfettered sonic barbarism. That glorious torrent of invigorating filth slithers majestically on… "We weren't under any pressure to make this record and that's been the catalyst for us to create something really incredible," cackles a triumphant sounding Dani Filth. "The only way to top the last album was to go a completely different way, so it's a real mixture of styles this time. We haven't anchored ourselves to a concept. It was a real pleasure to write on a variety of different themes and the music is really diverse and sonically precise. The whole thing sounds perfect and very fucking heavy."
