CRADLE OF FILTH take the livestream to the dark ages.
ST MARY’S ART CENTRE, COLCHESTER
Suffolk’s gothic metal mainstays dig into their Pandora’s Box
CRADLE AT THEIR best have a cinematic elegance that doesn’t always translate perfectly to the sweaty, beery atmosphere of a live show. Consequently, this beautifully shot concert to an empty venue in their old stomping ground of Colchester is a far better showcase for the band’s capabilities than the standard summer festival set-up. The sumptuous light show, tasteful pyro, big-screen video montages, even the fake snow, are all deployed to perfection, but crucially, they’re upstaged by the setlist.
From golden oldies like Malice Through The Looking Glass to golden newies like Blackest Magic In Practice, Cradle have gradually amassed an impressive arsenal of killer tunes. The sequencing is savvy too, sweeping from the high-camp theatrical dramatics of Lilith Immaculate, through slinky goth ballad Nymphetamine (Fix), into the occult savagery of The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh, Dani barking his mad poetry underneath a giant projection of the ‘Goat of Mendes’ scene from
Hammer classic The Devil Rides Out. Ten albums and two EPS are represented in the 14-track set – and several more Hammer horrors, too.
Rich Shaw and Ashok are the definitive Cradle guitar tag-team, inexhaustible drummer Marthus full of precision nuances and athletic flourishes, while keening synth nymph Anabelle makes a striking impression at her first Cradle gig. It’s only Dani who punctures the mood; it seems at first that he’s addressing the strange artificiality of a gig without gig-goers by remaining imperiously silent between songs. That comes crashing down after 25 minutes when he quips, “Your applause is commended,” in his Suffolk growl, and starts addressing the invisible crowd with awkward pronouncements like “A stupid question, I know, but how the fuck is everybody doing out there in TV land?” Apart from these strangulated inanities, Cradle have never been a more top-end unit than they are right now. CHRIS CHANTLER