London
19 October 2019
Compere: “Jesus is a …”
Audience: “CUNT!” [giggling]
This is about as highbrow as it gets all evening. Camp as the campest tits. There’s also a punter dressed as Jesus displaying his irritation at everyone wearing the “Jesus is a cunt” t-shirt. #lol #classicbants.
The compere’s on between every act, like some sort of revue. Opening act DJ Amazonica spends a bunch of time stomping around the staging dancing, occasionally giving it some ‘are you fucking reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaady?!’ to the absolutely most parochial rock club generic playlist (RATM, Beasties‘ “Sabotage”, Nu-metal, all that). Dani Filth is wearing a cape. Dani Filth is wearing a cape. Yes, I wrote it twice. It was important.Fashion for the evening looked like a variation on corpse paint, million-inch heels, top hats, unnecessary dangling metal accoutrements, PVC, leather, corsets, eyeliner, black nail varnish. I was definitely underdressed in oxblood DMs, purple cords, black leather jacket and Laibach t-shirt. We’re gathered here for one of those band-plays-album-beginning-to-end events. That album is Cruelty And The Beast, which was the moment at which Cradle Of Filth stepped out from the ghoulish shadows of being the poppy end of back metal, and into being what they term “extreme metal”, which means a kind of poppy amalgam of the best bits of metal without the aching seriousness. I mean to say that they’re absolutely banging, but it’s kind of a thing that people are in on or think is a joke. And much of the last ten years or so of Cradle’s output hasn’t much to change that (though important to note, their most recent record Cryptoriana is a real return to form).
Anyway. Cruelty And The Beast is an absolutely astonishing record. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it is an absolutely unrelenting vision of macabre gothic poetry over music that’s steeped in goth, thrash, blastbeats, Iron Maiden-esque parallel solos, quasi-operatic interludes and a few more preposterous ideas at once. I’m not going to make the case that you should enjoy it, but it’s an entirely effective vision of the poppiest edge of extreme metal (or the metallist edge of pop). It’s not clever in the sense of being impressive for dullards, but it is a record that knows its audience and, well, Dani Filth is from Ipswich — so appealing to the urban hip is clearly not on the radar.
Aaaaaanyway. That’s all a bit of a tl;dr build-up to the live review. Did we come here for panto? I hope so. Dani is wearing a cape. Everyone on stage is very dressy. There’s actual stairs for the purpose of walking up and down. Guitars are slung posily, as is correct. There’s a drummer and a keyboardist at the back (top level) who are less posey because, like, difficult instruments to pose with. For some reason the drummer is behind a wall of perspex. There are flames in time to the music. Obviously. There’s a bit where a woman gives out roses to the audience.
I was a bit concerned that this might be one of those bands-past-their-best deals, but Dani is in fine voice. I’d heard his singing wasn’t what it was, but that’s not the case. The high bits are high. The low bits are lower than they might have been. His mic technique is flawless. It’s his show, really, which means he gets the best outfit. It’s only reasonable.
And actually this was, like, camp as campest tits. And the band were tight, but not concerned with boringly aping every solo of the records and that. Consummate, performative, banging tunes, minimum of cringe-inducing patter between tunes. Best proper band I’ve seen in yonks, if I’m honest.
-Words: Kev Nickells-
-Pictures: Lydia Musonic-
