I guess it’s destiny that I ended up reviewing this record. I’ve had the opportunity to review the last few Cradle Of Filth records and although I gave them someone decent reviews, as time wore on, I have found them to be rather boring. With records I really enjoy like Cruelty & The Beast, Midian, and Dusk & Her Embrace; I really don’t need to listen to new, uninspired Cradle Of Filth records. I tried to pass on this one but it sat in the pending list for over 180 days and with each passing day it seemed to mock me. Against my better judgment, I have finally claimed it.
Once in awhile you come across an album that can only be defined as a waste of time. That’s exactly where I’m at with Cradle Of Filth’s most recent EP called Evermore Darkly. The album was released in November of 2011 and was to serve as a supplemental record to 2010’s Darkly, Darkly Venus Aversa. There are only 2 purposes this album can serve. One is to keep the band fresh in people’s mind while they worked on new material. Hoping to sucker fans into buying into it for easy money would be the other. What would have been the more respectable route would be to have offered this entire collection of tracks as a bonus disc to the original album. Many of the previous Cradle Of Filth records have bonus discs full of b-sides and remixes, why couldn’t this one?
To get into the “album” itself. The record starts off with a new Doug Bradley spoken word called Transmission From Hell which tells the story about an oil dig in Siberia that went array and the sounds of hell were heard. In a bit of trickery, just when you thought you are going to get to hear these sounds, the first actual track of music is played. Who knew that Cradle Of Filth were a bunch of comedians? The song Thank Your Lucky Scars is the only brand new song on the album and is interesting in its own right. It has a lot more of the black metal elements from the earlier COF records but still maintains the “lets keep the traditional elements dominant” attitude of the more recent records. It’s arguably the best song from the Venus Aversa sessions and I find it odd that it didn’t make the cut for the album. After that it’s a series of altered or demo versions from tracks that appeared on DDVA, including one of the most annoying Cradle Of Filth songs entitled Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned). Not only do I get to hear another version of this shitty song, they presented me with trance remix of it. I legitimately like trance music and the song isn’t half bad. Then they let Dani Filth sing overtop of it and I turned it off. In an interesting fashion the record closes out with a reworked version of an orchestrated song from the very first Cradle Of Filth record. According to my research this was to serve as a teaser for the recently released full orchestra album called Midnight In The Labyrinth.
After finally listening to this record and when I was halfway through the review, did I find out that this was released with a bonus DVD of their entire performance at 2011’s Grasspop Festival. Without the inclusion of the DVD this release is a total waste of time and in a rare instance would recommend fans to just pirate the Thank Your Lucky Stars song. So unless you are a COF-superfan that needs everything and anything the band releases, I would say you can skip this one. I’m sure video footage of the Grasspop performance is online somewhere and you can probably find Thank Your Lucky Stars on iTunes if piracy isn’t your thing.
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