Let the aural assault of metal begin.
Nymphetamine was the first Cradle of Filth album I ever bought as well as the first real metal album I owned, and I must say I was blown away. I got this last year because I wanted to get into a type of music other than mainstream rock. Everything amazes me about this album; the vocals, guitar, bass, and drums. All of it is just fantastic. This is what introduced me to both this band and the overall genre of metal for the first time. Excuse me if you think my review is a bit biased, but these guys are special to me. The overall sound of them is, well, a tad hard to place, but I would like to call them melodic gothic metal.
Goodness gracious me-oh-my is Dani Filth one of the greatest metal singers in existence. Although I love the music in metal, it is rare for me to also enjoy the screaming of most metal bands, but Dani certainly is one of the best metal performers I have heard. His growls to quick paced screaming I find just done extremely well. His voice is just excellent and goes wonderfully well with the rest of this stellar band. When the first, actual song begins,
Gilded Cunt, I am treated to an aural assault of bone crunching guitar riffs and high speed double bass (something that is common throughout the whole album). Dani enters with a seamlessly soothing, yet heavy “ahhh”, and soon goes into fast paced screams; that just goes ever so well with the melody of the guitars and that is how it is for much of the album. I’m happy to say that his voice doesn’t ever get weak, and when he does start to show signs of becoming boring on a song, he pulls something out of the hat on that same song to more than make up for it. The best job from him is on the song
Nymphetamine (Overdose), which I will talk about later on.
Musically this album is even better. You would think that with all of the songs being so long that they would have boring repetitive parts, but strangely enough, they don’t. Most songs have a ton of variety to them even though they stay within the same sound for the most part. When transitioning from a melodic part to a heavier one; a single drum beat is heard that quickly has Dani scream, usually bringing in the crunching guitar riffs behind him. Something that does indeed standout on the guitars is on the song
Nemesis with the tremolo picked riff where it is nothing, but guitar and drums. The bass from Dave Pybus has some nice underlying lines that I think make him a hugely underrated player. Namely on
Nymphetamine (Overdose). On the near end of the song if you listen carefully you can hear the bass playing alternate lines to the guitar that makes for an interesting listen. Both drums and bass do the job that they came to do and then some, which just continues to stack upon the musical brilliance of this record. The dual guitars will trade off heavy riffs with each other a lot and sometimes there are a few brilliant solos found on here as well.
Swansong for a Raven is an absolutely beautiful piano driven song, even with the heavier guitar riffs throughout. The fast, rolling double bass from drummer Adrian is just awesome and compliments the fast paced guitars perfectly. Surprisingly for me it is one of my favorite songs on the album. To me it is one the heaviest and most soothing tracks of the whole album. It combines the entire scope of the present sound of Cradle of Filth.
Nymphetamine (Overdose) is a huge song that offers any Cradle fan pieces of anything that they have ever liked from the band. Personally, I love all of it. It’s a monster of a song that starts out with all of the instruments at a mid tempo pace. The drums are what mainly stick out for me during the first part of the song with some nice double bass and regular beats. Less than a minute into the song it goes to more of a faster pace with Dani introducing himself to the song with some fast screaming. It stays this way for a bit before coming to a halt and the pace slowing down considerably. The song then introduces beautiful vocals from Liv Kristine. Dani’s vocals around the five-minute mark come to a whisper, which I think are the best I’ve heard from him. The same part has his voice mixed to where it is loud in one earphone before going back and forth quickly. The guitars after this point are quite excellent and create a symphonic atmosphere for me for their slow pace. It then cuts out once again before the instruments come back slowly with the music from earlier in the song; that is again set at mid tempo with good double bass. Dani causes the song to once again get heavier, bringing some fast guitar riffs into the fold. Soon he screeches causing the whole song to become panicked and become really fast before it dies out, ending this nine-minute epic.
What I get out of this album is an album that is both heavy and melodic, creating an epic album as a whole. This may not sit well with older fans, but for what it’s worth, many fans of black metal should at least download a few songs off of this to try out. Namely
Nymphetamine (Overdose),
Nemesis, and
Swansong for a Raven.
Superb album-Dani’s voice is excellent and the use of slight symphonics give this a melodic edge.
