Cradle of Filth
Evermore Darkly

January 2012
Released: 2011, Nuclear Blast
Rating: 3.0/5
Reviewer: JP

In the spirit of Cradle of Filths ‘More is more’ attitude I’m writing two reviews for this release. Pick your favorite. Enjoy.



Short Version: (61 words)



Stupefyingly Unnecessary. Contents: 1 CD with…8 songs. An intro, an extended version, three demos, one crappy techno remix, one orchestral version and one decent new song.

1 DVD with…1 video. 1 concert (1 hour). 1 documentary. (45 minutes of fooling around on tour)

Package. Good cover. Nice (wordy) essay. Good graphics as always. Only one tit shot.

The End.



Long Version: (614 words)



My initial comment of stupefyingly unnecessary still stands…IF…you are only a casual fan. The rest of us true fans (Yes us. I include myself in that category since I bought the Bible Edition of THE GOSPEL OF FILTH) can delight in this high quality EP. It’s COF’s, 5th EP (16th release to date) and it is also their best EP to date. This creature feature is absolutely loaded with the gory good stuff.



The packaging, as always, is top-notch. Full liner notes, lyrics to the lone new song, ‘Thank Your Lucky Scars’ and a very amusing essay from Lord Filth. It starts.. “This is a total rip off, there is no mistake to be had about that. Pure and fucking simple. Eight tracks culled from or inspired by the ‘…Venus Aversa’ sessions plus a DVD containing over an hour and a half’s worth of band footage as well as a highly informative documentary shot mostly in Russia…well it’s almost criminal that it isn’t given away for free! What a sham! Still, no-one forced you to buy it, nor did they threaten to kill your Grandparents or eat your horrible little fluffy dog if you didn’t download it legally right that precise nanosecond.” It goes on and on from there…



The CD is pretty cool. The spoken, sound-effect laced intro is creepy, spoken by Doug Bradley (Pinhead) and it leads into the aforementioned, and quite ripping, new cut. The three demos are a waste of space. These days demos are so well done there is very little difference between the demo versions (done on a computer) and the final versions that get the ‘showroom shine’, also done on a computer. It’s not like the olden times when a band would initially do a 4-track analog demo on a cassette and then go into a huge, multi-million dollar studio with a producer and do a 50-track digital production and polish it, and the result would be dramatically, audibly different. The techno remix is horrible and Dani even references that point in his essay saying that not everyone will like it. The orchestral song, a remake of ‘Summer Dying Fast’ holds promise for the next MIDNIGHT IN THE LABYRINTH project. The CD is nice collection of odds and sods for collectors.



THE DVD is where you recover your price of admission. Cradle of Filth has always been a band with a strong visual component. Almost two hours! The promo video for ‘Lilith Immaculate’ is great, lots of boobs and blood like any good Cradle video.



The concert was filmed at Graspop in Belgium on June 25th, 2011 and the eleven songs span just over an hour. It’s good, standard, multi-camera show, perhaps a little rough around the edges, not a ton of effort into the post-production; what you saw (if you were there) is what you see.



The highlight for me is the documentary, “You Can’t Polish A Turd, But You Can Roll It In Glitter’. It’s essentially 45 minutes of the band on the road from their latest tour. It shows that road life is not always glamorous and the usual hi-jinks, drunken pranks, people mugging for the camera and so on. The whole thing is narrated by Dani as well as the band wound their way across Russia.



These guys never fail to disappoint. Even their (throw-away) EP’s are higher quality than many bands. The respect for their fans is demonstrated in the construction of the EP and the attention to detail. Two reviews and a split rating. It’s a perfect EP for die-hards. (5/5) A waste of time for everyone else (1/5) Split the difference… 5+1=6 Divide by 2…therefore I think a 3/5 is a fair rating.