another guilty pleasure of mine was and is cradle of filth. in celebration of the release of their new album 'hammer of the witches', which is finally in my possession, i will start a little series with all in all three cof records. i have this particular copy of cradle's debut album 'the principle of evil made flesh' for about ten months on my shelf and now is the right occasion to post it off eventually.
i bought this album on cd at some point in 2003 but sold it again because i wasn't really pleased with anything prior to 2000's 'midian' release. i still think that 'cruelty and the beast' and especially 'dusk and her embrace' are the weakest efforts of this suffolk based band, even though i know that there are a lot of fans that praise these very two albums as the band's crowning work.
anyway, since i found out that back on black re-issued the album on double clear blue vinyl in 2011, my interest was back. so i re-visited the album and i have to say that this time i was quite surprised that i pretty much liked what i heard. of course, it's an early work of the band and that is definitely what it sounds like, 1993, raw and unpolished. a product of its circumstances but it has that distinct cof magick.
i think paul allender's song writing skills were the key. except of the unspeakable 'thornography' his impact made the difference musically. an impact, an energy 'cruelty...' and 'dusk...' were missing. anyway, back on black copies sold out and so i was glad to see this new pressing. it was brought to us by the end records from the states. the mock up pictures were showing a lovely blue and white merge vinyl colour. well, it came out a bit more blue and less white. 1000 copies made. the end records. 2014.
