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Zad in your review you mention that this is a concept album but don't meniton anything other than it's about Gilles De Rais. Can you elaborate a bit more about the concept and who Gilles De Rais is? Thanks!

French nobleman/serial killer from the time of Joan of Arc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_rais

I would have explained more in the review, but I personally find whole paragraphs about what exactly is happening in concept albums rather boring, and leave that to the reader to discover for themselves once they've listened to the music.

Understandable, though one can still point out things within the concept without being too elaborate. Aside from lyrics, which in some cases might be self explanatory, I'm sure the description of the music within the songs is another way of interpreting the story; just by the different moods, tempos, dynamics, etc.

Ah, yes.

I must say, I never realised that Celtic Frost's 'Into The Crypt Of Rays' was about Mr Rais. The cover by Cradle (on the bonus disk, only arrived today so not enough time to mention it in the review) is pretty good, and obviously much better than the disco crap they've been doing as covers.

I have that song by CF as well. I'm going to have to go to darklyrics.com while listening to the song to see how it relates to De Rais. Very interesting! I'm also going to go to the link you posted earlier to read more about Gilles De Rais.

Here are the Celtic Frost Lyrics:

Into The Crypt Of Rays

Years of plead, behind the walls
Chambers and vaults, Scenes of fright
Unspoken Words, in pain and dread
140 lives passed his hands

Gilles De Ray's... the perverted son
The holy man... hanged by nobility
Into The Crypts of Rays...

Alluring children for his masses
Robbing and buying young souls
Sacrifice to morbid demons
Satisfy his repulsive sexual lust

Gilles De Ray's... the perverted son
The holy man... hanged by nobility
Into The Crypts of Rays...

"So this is for the morbid one,
The braveless and sick
Shivering laughter shrilled through the tombs
Sexual offence and perverted rites
Watching them limp and die...
Wizards and darkness, Gilles' dreams
Halfway came true..."

As a late medieval's French marshall
Unrestrained, with endless ambitions
Personal guard for Jeanne D'Arc
...the rising of his soul to god...

Gilles De Ray's... the perverted son
The holy man... hanged by nobility
Into The Crypts of Rays...

Overdone Mystism and
Desperate Satanism (Ha!)
Are just one small step apart
There's no human scheme in the beyond...

Gilles De Ray's... the perverted son
The holy man... hanged by nobility
Into The Crypts of Rays...

Proof enough that I should check CF lyrics out in the future. Tom Warrior's hardly got the clearest of voices, has he?

"Circle of da Ty-unts.....UGH!"...definately not, LOL!

INTEEEURGH CRIPTAVRAISE!

You guys made my day with the CF talk...

Seriously though, I really like the new CoF... they've done a good job. I'm pretty sure that it won't be long before the CoF detractors show and shit on them but either way, I've been enjoying CoF every since Dusk and I've even liked some of the stuff on the much maligned Thornography. As for Godspeed, The Death of Love is one of the best CoF songs in ages, IMO. Perhaps Cradle's best since Midian. The only nitpick I have is that it's a bit overlong, but maybe after some more spins it'll replace itself.

Meanwhile, 80/100 for me.

Eh, I kinda miss the pompous Cradle of Filth.

I really found this enjoyable. Good to see them returning to form because we need entertaining bands like this too.

Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder is IMO the most pompous COF Album since Cruelty and the Beast. And also one of the most aggressive ones, because so much blast beats were not even on the early COF albums. The only song I didn't like much is 13th Cesar. It's too much Thornography. (Whereas Thornography is not bad at all, just sometimes too melodic) But after Tiffauge, all hell is breaking loose.

Heh, not a big fan of Cradle of Filth but I liked Gilles de Rais enough to make an RPG character based off the fucker. Might check this out.

Honey And Sulphur made me quite the happy camper.

Honestly it's great seeing that there are still some CoF fans around. It gets boring seeing people saying that they're not real/true BM all the time. The thing is if you want to hear pure BM, put on Emperor or Mayhem. Personally, I think Dani is a great lyricist and all the imagery and posturing is fun to watch.

Still have to check this out, but I haven't seen any negativity at all about it overall.

Exactly. And even then I'm sure a few elitists out there would argue Emperor are too symphonic.



Dani being a great lyricist is a part of what really got me into CoF. There are great lyricists out there but Dani's prose is deep, well-crafted and researched, often using Olde English expressions and everything. Made me look up in the dictionary a few times, I admit. But that's the beauty of it. Most fluke when writing Lovecraftian lyrics (I love Ironsword, but that Call of Cthulhu song on Overlords of Chaos is ridiculous) but Dani really nails it everytime, especially on Midian and Nymphetamine.

As for the imagery.. I guess it comes with it. And I totally agree, although some say it's a bit gimmicky, I find it rather amusing and fun to watch.

The funny thing is, that over the last years just many of the truest norwegian BM Bands are steering into the black n roll direction, and now suddenly just the black sheep of the BM scene is bringing a much more true (symphonic) BM album than Bands like Darkthrone or Satyricon. Even Ihsahn is with his solo work more away from the roots than Cradle of Filth.

I already know you have absolutely no knowledge of thrash and power metal, but ignorance of black metal is definitely new.

Darkthrone were never symphonic, and CoF were never true. Furthermore, the "... 'n' roll" of Darkthrone, Aura Noir, Tyrant, etc. is at the very root of black metal - too bad everyone had to go off adding Casio orchestras to it to hide their lack of songwriting, or worse, in pretentiousness.