“Scheduling has been a nightmare for a long time,” says guitarist Rob Caggiano about Temple Of The Black Moon. That seems like hyperbole, but gosh maybe not: TotBM drummer John Tempesta has been dashing between The Cult and Testament tours; singer Dani Filth’s full time job is Cradle Of Filth; Caggiano is bound to Anthrax’s rigorous itinerary, and his TotBM writing partner, Tom Cato Visnes, has been involved with Sahg, I, Gorgoroth, and Ov Hell outings in just the last five years.

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In an apparent effort to redeem bass players for their transgressions throughout this week, Madball four-stringer Hoya Roc has posted the above photo, which is apparently Dani Filth being restrained by a security guard at France’s recent L’ez Arts Sceniques Festival, although it’s not a good photo so who knows.

Roc also posted a comment with the pic, which suggests he hates CoF as much as some of you guys do: “When metal fantasy goes wrong!! Haha cradle of filth singer gettin yoked up by security.” Alas, Roc does not say what Filth did to provoke the guard. Still, I’m sure this will bring some of you a little joy.

-AR

[via The PRP]

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Say what you will about Cradle of Filth — and I’m sure there will be plenty in the comments below — but they’re responsible for one of the greatest t-shirts of all time. You know the one: topless nun fingering herself on front, massive all-caps “JESUS IS A CUNT” unmistakably stamped on the back. I have fond memories of goth kids shuffling around the mall in the mid-’90s wearing that thing, about to get thrown out by security, and thinking, “Hmmm… not quite as thought-provoking as my ‘9 out of 10 kids prefer crayons to guns’ Pearl Jam shirt, but intriguing nonetheless!”

The accompanying record, of course, was The Principle of Evil Made Flesh, and this month it’s a Decibel Hall of Fame inductee. Other than seeing them live at Download four years ago and laughing for like an hour straight, I don’t have anything productive to add about this band. So, I’ll leave you with not only some outtake action, courtesy of scribe Chris Dick, but a trivia question that will not result in you winning a shirt or subscription: What current Decibel writer is a former member of Cradle of Filth?

And here’s your bonus footage:

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Say, are you one of the three people in the world who not only thought that metal needed another supergroup, but also thought that metal needed another supergroup featuring Anthrax/The Damned Things guitarist Rob Caggiano? If so, have we got a band for you!

They’re called Temple of the Black Moon, and in addition to Caggiano, the group features Cradle of Filth vocalist Dani Filth, former Gorgoroth bassist King ov Hell, and drummer John Tempesta, who has played a gajillion different bands, including both White Zombie and Rob Zombie’s solo group, Exodus, Testament, The Cult, and Helmet. It seems safe to assume that Caggiano played a significant role in putting this project together — not only did he produce two Cradle of Filth releases (2004′s Nymphetamine and 2006′s Thornography), but Tempesta has also worked as a drum tech for ‘Thrax — but between the two bands he’s already in and the producing he does, I can’t believe he felt like he had too much free time. Maybe Worship Music is seriously never coming out.

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Cradle of Filth’s new video has debuted on Fangoria. It’s for the song “Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned),” from their new album, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa. Some random thoughts:

• I didn’t realize before that Dani Filth’s new Daryl-Hannah-in-Blade-Runner make-up had glitter in it. Between that and the snake dancer chick in the slinky sequined number, I’m ready to declare Cradle of Filth a glam band. (And Dani’s blue lipstick ain’t huring my argument, either.) I don’t care if Filth’s vocals sound like my Uncle Morty trying to reach the remote without getting out of his chair, or that he’s singing about religion; he’s singing about sex as a violation of religion, not how we’re all enslaved by Christianity or whatever. (I understand there’s a connection between the two — but, here at least, it’s specifically the sex part that interests Filth. In case the symbolism of the snake, the hovering over the chick’s bed, the Merchant-Ivory-esque longing glances through a confessional booth, the girl’s offering to give Dani “whatever will make you spend eternity with me,” and the fact that the band is performing in a giant vagina didn’t tip you off.) So this is really just a goth kid’s answer to “Talk Dirty to Me,” an allegedly rebellious, catchy pop metal song about fucking, designed for fucking.
• I’d like to thank whomever makes these decisions for hiring Bryce Dallas Howard to do the female vocals, instead of whatever the fuck that is that’s doing them in the new Dimmu Borgir song.

Head over to Fangoria to check out the video. Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa comes out November 9.

-AR

I often associate Dimmu Borgir with Cradle of Filth, for really no better reason than I think they’re probably both gateways into black metal for a lot of kids. I can’t think of two other black metal bands that have gotten so popular in metal’s relative mainstream; I mean, I assume they’re not selling Mayhem shirts at Hot Topic (at least not yet).

Now here’s another good reason to associate CoF with Dimmu: Both bands have new albums coming out, both bands are rockin’ new gear for those albums, and both bands seem to have modled that gear on a prior Marilyn Manson look. Dimmu have gone the all-white Mechanical Animals route (although a friend recently suggested that the style might actually owe more to Antichrist Superstar Manson), and now Cradle of Filth are doing the Daryl Hannah-in-Blade Runner thing that Manson did for Holy Wood:

So that’s a little weird. I fucking love Blade Runner, but I think it’s time to declare a moratorium on this particular style of make-up, don’t you? Like, if musicians wanna start dressing like Joanna Cassidy or, better yet, Brion James, that would be swell with me… just no more Daryl Hannah, okay?

Cradle of Filth’s latest, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa, comes out in November. Watch a behind-the-scenes video (featuring the above make-up) with  a piece of a new song after the jump.

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So there’s a new Cradle of Filth song, “Lilith Immaculate,”and we got a bunch of reader e-mails about it hours (and in one case days) BEFORE we got a press release. So three cheers for COF’s fanatical followers knowing about it every time Dani Filth farts, regardless of whether or not the media tells them how it smelled.

ANYWAY, the song. You can download it by signing up for the COF mailing list, or you can just listen below. It sounds like Cradle of Filth to me. I’m not a huge fan, and the one time I saw the band live, it was pretty much the most awful thing ever… but every now and then they churns out a pop-black metal tune that gets stuck in my noggin. (Like that song “Nymphetamine.” That’s a guilty pleasure if ever there was one.) And I do think that Dani Filth is a really, really smart guy with a vision who has worked very hard for his success. One might not like that vision, which is fine… but the dude has gotten as far as he has for a reason, y’know?

Cradle of Filth’s new album, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa, comes out November 9 on Nuclear Blast. Everyone who didn’t e-mail us should talk about how much they hate this band in the comments section, and then everyone who did e-mail us should defend them.

-AR

Metal and horror just kinda naturally go hand-in-hand. They’re both forms are art that exist on the fringes of “normal” society, they both often deal with violence and extreme situations/emotions, they’re both usually bleak as fuck. There’s a reason I discovered horror movies and metal music the same youthful summer, and a reason I started reading Fangoria and Metal Edge right around the same time.

So: once you’re done watching the awesome new Cradle of Filth clip we debuted earlier today, “The Death of Love,” head over to the aforementioned (and still awesome!) Fangoria, where they’re hosting a behind-the-scenes video, including an interview with Dani Filth himself. Dani has one of the only speaking voices in the world I enjoy listening to as much as my own. It’s the saucy British accent, I think.

Check out the video here.

-AR

As a man, I’m painfully aware that at any metal show the chances of me being squeezed between two sweaty fat dudes in the front row for 90 minutes is infinitely higher than me being near anything that remotely resembles a female. I say “resembles” because I still remember the time my buddy wrestled a “dude” to the floor of the Commodore Ballroom after they both caught either end of Jimmy Bower’s drumstick. The look on his face when he heard obscenities yelled at him in a screeched, soprano voice ranks pretty highly among my favorite concert memories.

This time the venue was familiar, the metal crowd certainly was not. Oh sure, I already expected the Cradle of Filth fans who can count more zippers, buckles and chains on their outfits than times they’ve heard their parents say they’re proud of them, but beyond platform soles and midnight blue dreadlocks there were many perfectly normal and some perfectly curvy women in attendance. Now, I’ve never really believed that Dani Filth could be a sex symbol for anyone old enough to buy beer, but I guess being the front man of a popular metal band can make even a hideous midget significantly more fuckable. Then again, the gals probably just came out to hear the music.

Oh yeah, you probably want to hear about the music.

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Over the past decade and a half, few bands have attracted as much controversy, inside and out of the metal community, as Cradle of Filth. With the release of each album, the popularity of these British black metallers just grows and grows, and their increased success is always followed by a cloud of angry school marms and tr00 kvltists who think COF have betrayed the cause.

The band’s forthcoming new album, Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder (Oct. 28, Roadrunner) isn’t likely to change any of that. A symphonic concept album about Gilles de Rais, the peer of Joan of Arc who went on to do unimaginably terrible things to literally hundreds of children, is easily the fastest, heaviest album the band has released in years, and seems destined to stir the pot once again.

We recently got the chance to sit down with COF vocalist, namesake and general mastermind Dani Filth to chat about a wide range of topics. Jet lagged though he was, we found Dani to be a smart, funny, articulate, and a very passionate guy. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Cradle of Filth aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and their work demands your attention. Read Dani’s thoughts on the new album, the controversy surrounding the band, and his forthcoming book, The Gospel of Filth, after the jump.

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Cradle of Filth have posted a new song, “Tragic Kingdom,” for free download here. The track comes off the band’s new Andy Sneap-produced album, Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder, which Roadrunner will release on October 28, just in time for Halloween (ooooooooh… spooky). It’s a concept album about Gilles De Rais, a peer of Joan of Arc’s who later did a lot of horrible stuff to a lot of little boys (and some little girls, but, like everyone here at the MetalSucks Mansion, he preferred little boys). We got to chat with Dani Filth about the album last week, and he told us it was “a dark fairytale.” I’m not sure how a French nobleman going all Hostel on a bunch of kids can be a fairytale, but, hey, I’m willing to give Dani the benefit of the doubt.

ANYWAY, the song seems a little more traditionally black metal than anything from the last couple of COF albums, although at this point I don’t know if there’s anything Dani and the boys could do to satisfy the tr00 kvltists. I’m also fairly certain they don’t care.

-AR

[Thanks to Ryan Durinick for the tip].

An insider in the Cradle of Filth camp recently pointed out to me what I already knew – it’s been a long time since COF seemed even remotely dangerous. If the goal of the band’s new album, Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder – out October 28 on Roadrunner – is to restore some edge to the band, then I’m all for it.

The subject matter is certainly appropriate: it’s a concept album about Gilles de Rais, a contemporary of Joan of Arc who went on to rape and murder hundreds – hundreds! – of children. Whether Dani Filth still has it in him to make the album more Se7en than Suspect Zero, only time will tell.

In the meantime, here’s the band’s video for “Nymphetamine.” The only thing dangerous about it… is how catchy the song is! BWA-HA-HA!

-AR