Cradle of Filth are a band I've never really bothered with. While I dig Motorhead, broadly speaking, metal's never been my scene, largely on account of the fact that as a genre, bands and fans alike seem completely oblivious to how, well, stupid the whole thing is. To use cliche to achieve some end, or to subvert it is cool. Endlessly rehashing it and taking everything to damn seriously: that's just not cool. Within that framework of irony-free naffness, Cradle of Filth always seemed particularly naff.
Listening to the opening track of their latest effort, the portentously (or should that be pretentiously?) titled 'Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa,' I find myself beginning to wonder if perhaps I may have misjudged them. It's a pretty audacious move, to start an album off with a seven-minute mental metal opera, with sweeping strings swooping and diving all over a crunching guitar riff played at breakneck speed and double-pedal drumming that's so fast it's beyond whiplash-inducing. If Jim Steinman and Meatloaf had decided to write thrash metal, it would sound like 'The Cult of Venus Aversa': completely and utterly, preposterously over the top and on a scale that's beyond epic. Of course, Jim Thirlwell's been melding industrial-strength guitars to big orchestral vistas since the 80s, but you can't blame Cradle of Filth for taking the blueprint in a more metal direction.
There's no let up as 'One Foul Step from the Abyss' hurtles from the speakers like an asteroid burning through the atmosphere on a collision course for civilisation, bringing doom to mankind. Dani Filth's vocals, veering between a hoarse scream and something that combines a growl and a wheeze, serve to deliver largely indecipherable lyrics about demons, occultism, blood, gore and necrophilia - yeah, standard metal fare - against a relentless percussion-led backdrop. In terms of B-movie metal and goth-horror (melo)dramatics, it's a technical and theatrical triumph.
The only trouble is, all of the tracks sound the same, and after the first couple or three tracks (and there are eleven, most of which land between five and six minutes), the joke's worn pretty thin. Oh, wait. What? This isn't a joke? People take this seriously? The band take themselves seriously too? But what about the absurd titles, like 'The Nun with the Astral Habit' and 'Harlot on a Pedestal'? Surely it's the thrash metal equivalent of Zodiac Mindwarp, revelling in the stupidity of all of the cliche imagery and the dumbness of the genre? No? In which case, I've clearly given them far more credit than is due, and I was right all along. It's not clever, it's not moody and it's not remotely scary. It is, however, deeply embarrassing. 'Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa' can claim the achievement of taking corny metal cliche to a whole new level. While that's some feat, it doesn't make it worthy of praise. Their legions of oh-so-serious fans would probably beg to differ, of course...
