CRADLE OF FILTH — Dusk and Her Embrace (review)

CRADLE OF FILTH — Dusk and Her Embrace album cover Album · 1996 · Symphonic Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
Dusk and Her Embrace is the 2nd full-length studio album by UK black/ goth metal act Cradle of Filth. The album was released in August 1996 by Music for Nations.

The music on the album is already this early in the band´s career the unmistakable sound of Cradle of Filth. The trademark combination of symphonic/ melodic black metal and goth metal. The songs on the album are quite adventurous and most are pretty long, which gives them time to develop, which in this case also means that there are a lot of different sections in each song. This makes for quite a challenging listen, but the band never lose sight of memorability and you´ll find plenty of hooks in the music. While this certainly is extreme metal ( lots of blasting drums and aggressive parts), and especially Dani Filth´s vocals come off as really extreme at times, the songs are actually pretty melodic and also to a point pretty accessible. The above mentioned vocals are both growling, raspy, really high pitched screaming and clean deep goth type talking/ singing. Dani Filth is a very versatile vocalist. In addition to Dani Filth´s various vocal styles there are also occassional female vocals in the songs. The serve as a kind of dark erotic spice.

Dusk and Her Embrace is quite the intriguing album and fans of the goth tinged black metal style should enjoy this one greatly. Personally there are a few things that keep me from awarding the album with a full 4 star rating though. First of all the extremely high pitched screaming vocals that Dani Filth performs at times. I really have a hard time listening to them when they occur in longer passages on the album. They sound hysteric and unpleasant to my ears. When that vocal style is used more moderately in the songs it works much better. Secondly the production is a bit thin. It´s not lo-fi by any means, but it´s not that well sounding to my ears. So overall a 3.5 star rating is warranted.
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