Album Review: Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa by Cradle of Filth

The extreme metal act everyone loves to hate Nearly 20 years into a career marked as much by outrage and scandal as by their frequently overlooked musical accomplishments, Cradle Of Filth have firmly established themselves as the extreme metal act everyone loves to hate. On the one hand, they’re capable of headlining the none-more-prestigious Bloodstock Open Air festival; on the other, they’re equally capable of storming off mid-set when their guitarist gets struck by a wayward gobstopper [see the 09 event for details]. Why is this relevant to ‘Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa’, the band’s ninth, and perhaps best studio offering to date? Well, if you think that Cradle Of Filth are about to make the slightest concession to their detractors in their encroaching middle age, think again.

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Few bands have attracted as much derision as Cradle of Filth has throughout its career. But they are one of the few metal bands where the hatred arises not from lack of talent, but from an overabundance of talent and the inability of some listeners to recognize it. Looking back at the black metal scene and extreme metal in general, Cradle of Filth has consistently been among the pioneering bands.

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While Cradle of Filth's Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa is reportedly -- according to frontman Dani Filth -- a companion concept album to 2008's Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder, the results are quite different. The former album centered on Joan of Arc's right-hand man Gilles de Rais who flipped his wig and became a psychopathic child murderer. This set pays homage to another historic figure: Lilith (the Venus Aversa, the anti-goddess of love, directly under God), who, according to Jewish mythology, was the first wife of Adam who left him because she would not be subservient: she decided, as an act of free will, to make demon babies with the serpent instead.

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