Cradle of Filth - Lovecraft and Witch Hearts

In the land of power drills and sacrifice is where Cradle Filth eats dinner. "Lovecraft and Witch Hearts" is the band's 8th studio album, which says a lot in the light of label and possible fan support. They sit in a place that few metal bands can say they are. Cradle of Filth is one of the few bands these days that are actually rewarded with an MTV video ban. One of the things that makes them great is taking masochistic and sodomistic tendencies to the listener with a somewhat talented band, while putting images forth that would give 10% of the population a heart attack. Unfortunately, this review has nothing to do with Cradle of Filths visuals, and instead focuses on it's soundtrack. "Lovecraft and Witch Hearts" is a double CD with attitude and raunch, yet not only steers far from my preference, but will be lucky to find itself in the changer of most metal heads. Simply, the band name itself will cause a smirk, but once you pop this disc in, you really begin to test tolerance. I would never put down a band and judge them for a single release, for Cradle of Filth holds their place in black metal, but only a certain few would even be able to make it through the entire album because of a few key factors. What will turn people off initially is the vocal style. Some growl, some bark, some scream (Dr. Seuss?), but what we have here is pure velociraptor. If Axel Rose started a black metal band back in 1984, it would sound like this. What could stand as a very potent and deep choice of vocal tone transcends into something very silly. Silliness is what plagues this record all around. String ensembles dot the album, though they aren't real strings - they're Casio strings. This carries over to the other dozen album segues. The "inbetweeners" come off contrived, not moving. As far as the rest of the music, it's very loud and could be heavy, but the mix keeps it from anything remotely close to powerful. Every instrument is drowned in reverb, the drums are shoddily mixed, and the songs seem to hiss at you, screaming, "Turn me off, turn me off!" It's much more noisy than powerful. The good points in the album lie in some of the composition - for this is not a simple album. Orchestration is rampant, and the drummer is quite talented as well. He's very fast and fluid, and his choices are nice choices. Too bad his drums sound horrible on the CD. I can't dig "Lovecraft and Witch Hearts". It wallows in pretension, from the white make-up and bad clothes, to the "Boo! Did I scare you?" lyrics, to the chainsaw vocals and fake instrumentation. The album as a whole is very artificial, and I would consider it just as "processed" as most of the pop these days. Cradle of Filth's new adventure will only appeal to the chosen few. They hold their position in black metal, but that position is nowhere near the discs spinning in my player. It will appeal to very few. 1.5 manstyle points. [www.cradleoffilth.com]