Cradle of Filth - Haunted Shores

Riff mark: 3:10

Hear me now: if black metal sounded this polished more would listen somehow. Cradle’s third outpouring (no nudity on this cover? For shame) is a sheen of shiny onyx, the antithesis of an unwritten black metal manifesto, boasting tremendous recording sensibilities instead of mimicking the lo-fi deliberations of old. Downright beautiful if you ask me, these inclusions and perfections of reverb and treble invoking the true gothic nature of this European-housed subgenre, FINALLY justifying black metal as a marketable, classical art form of baroque, Wagnerian, and Venomian-tinged extremity. Dusk and Her Embrace is a symphonic treat, not to be quickly declared a cheap cash-in commercial entryway into the black, but rather a definition is what is capable when an image positively affects its music. Make-up, powder, mascara, nail polish, finger gauntlets, ruby goblets, and beautiful bloodied women across pages of luscious linear notes are mere teasers to the superb, spectral, twisting tremolo-picked Thin Lizzied guitar melodies soaring through songs, keyboards fetching Maiden-esque 3^rd guitar parts in pompous homogeneity. Dani Filth proves the looks and sounds for a requested front man of this strain, fluctuating shrieks and howls with narrative baritone, the latter often more effective. Most surprising is the harkening to new wave the Cradle tips towards, sly British winks to early minimalist foundations made by drab blokes such as The Cure and Sisters of Mercy (especially). Evolutions in directions that stretch away from a conventional black and towards a conventional crowd, yet refusing conformity, embracing perfectionism instead. A terrific, winning approach. Coincidentally released a month after Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, of which graphic similarities exist at face-value.