Cradle of Filth: Bitter Suites to Succubi : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

My beef with Cradle of Filth isn't that they are card-carrying Satanists and are proud to live outside the strictures of modern morality. Stuff like that had has been fueling rock & roll fantasies since before Jimmy Page even thought about buying Aleister Crowley's mansion. Instead, the bloody ax I grind is that I can barely make out the invective being spewed. Dani, the self-billed "Serpent Tongue" lashes out chilling incantations and dark parables to accessorize cinematic guitar rock that conjures up barren nightscapes, virgin sacrifices and oily chested men dressed as robust bucks. But if I can't make out what the corpse-painted singer is screeching about, like a deranged Geddy Lee trapped in a Scold's Bridle, how can I be truly scared? But that's not to say Bitter Suites to Succubi is a failure. This ten-year old band's gift is conjuring up eerie soundscapes to titillate the left-of-center Goth, and beg for Klaus Kinski to stalk another nubile neck looking for a juicy jugular to drink blood from. And to be fair, besides being skilled horror-meisters, COF are sophisticated musicologists. Their bombastic "No Time to Cry," is downright anthemic, while "Suicide and Other Comforts," offers some subtle pacing, and intricate sleight-of-hand drumming before it tumbles towards the abyss. Eschewing much of the right wing, Viking mythology of their Swedish metal brethren, COF has instead perverted the pagan history of England to convince their fans that they are the voice of Armageddon. And they don't even have a Texan accent.

JAAN UHELSZKI
(June 18, 2001)