| Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder | ||||||||||
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| Studio album by Cradle of Filth | ||||||||||
| Released | October 27, 2008 | |||||||||
| Recorded | March – July 2008 at Backstage Studios in Derbyshire, England | |||||||||
| Genre | Extreme metal | |||||||||
| Length | 71:22 | |||||||||
| Label | Roadrunner | |||||||||
| Producer | Andy Sneap | |||||||||
| Cradle of Filth chronology | ||||||||||
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| Alternative Cover | ||||||||||
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Special Edition Cover
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Blistering | [2] |
| ChartAttack | [3] |
| IGN | [4] |
| Kerrang! | |
| Lords of Metal | [5] |
| Music Emissions | [6] |
| PopMatters | [7] |
| Terrorizer | |
| Thrash Hits | [8] |
Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder (subtitled The Life and Crimes of Gilles de Rais) is the eighth studio album by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth. It was released on October 27, 2008 by Roadrunner Records. A special edition containing bonus material was also released.[9] Once again, Doug Bradley provides narration for the album (as with Midian, Nymphetamine and Thornography). The title of the album derives from a valediction vocalist Dani Filth once used to sign a letter.[9] It is Cradle of Filth's first album in which the band is depicted as a four-piece, rather than its usual six-man staple. It is also the last album to feature backing vocalist Sarah Jezebel Deva.
The album debuted at #48 on the Billboard Top 200 chart with sales of a little over 11,000 copies.[10]
Contents |
The album is produced by Sabbat guitarist Andy Sneap, who previously worked with Cradle of Filth while mixing the band's 2006 album, Thornography.
The band's official message boards recently revealed parts of an interview with guitarist Paul Allender, conducted by MédiaMatinQuébec: "We already have four new songs ready and I have to say that they are... much faster than the songs on Thornography. [They] sound like old Cradle of Filth... A mixture of Midian and Dusk...." The interview goes on to state that the album will be followed by a European and American tour. Dani Filth has described the album as, "our most extreme, dramatic and deeply disturbing album to date. The legend of Gilles de Rais has been given fresh, vampyrical life in this conceptual meisterwerk, swathed in pitch-black magic and a viciousness unsurpassed in the annals of Cradle history. Screw what our detractors say, everyone who has heard this album has bruised their jaws on the pentagram-bejewelled floor."[11]
In an interview with Blistering magazine, Filth revealed that three additional songs were recorded during the album sessions, among them an instrumental piece and a cover of Celtic Frost's "Into the Crypt of Rays".[9] On the topic of their absence from the album, Filth has stated that they "were taken out so that the album wasn't too long. They'll turn up somewhere."[9] They were ultimately included on the special edition.
In an interview published in February 2009, Dani talked about Gilles de Rais, and how his story manifests on Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder:
| “ | After Joan of Arc's death, he slid into a life of debauchery, which ended up with him trying to reclaim his fortune through alchemy and witchcraft. This led him to murder and kidnapping. He was eventually arrested by the Catholic Church and tried. It's a great gothic sort of fairytale story, because he's a very pious man at the beginning, turns extremely evil... The story runs concurrently throughout the album, it's not just vague ideas orbiting a main satellite. It's a story, and the narrative is actually taken from trial transcripts that were taken down in secular court at the time of his judgment.[12] | ” |
The track "Tragic Kingdom", was made available for free download by Roadrunner Records on August 27, 2008. 30-second samples of each track on the album were made available on amazon.de on September 27.[13] The track "Honey and Sulphur" was the album's first single, and has been made available for purchase on the iTunes Store. A music video for the song was filmed at the Chislehurst Caves of Kent.[14][15] In addition, "Midnight Shadows Crawl to Darken Counsel with Life" is available for streaming on the band's official website. A video for "The Death of Love" was released on July 31, 2009.[16][17] Andy Sneap has mixed a new version of the song for the video.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "In Grandeur and Frankincense Devilment Stirs" (Instrumental) | 2:27 |
| 2. | "Shat Out of Hell" | 5:03 |
| 3. | "The Death of Love" | 7:13 |
| 4. | "The 13th Caesar" | 5:35 |
| 5. | "Tiffauges" (Instrumental) | 2:14 |
| 6. | "Tragic Kingdom" | 5:59 |
| 7. | "Sweetest Maleficia" | 5:59 |
| 8. | "Honey and Sulphur" | 5:37 |
| 9. | "Midnight Shadows Crawl to Darken Counsel With Life" | 8:58 |
| 10. | "Darkness Incarnate" | 8:55 |
| 11. | "Ten Leagues Beneath Contempt" | 4:58 |
| 12. | "Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder" | 5:36 |
| 13. | "Corpseflower" (Instrumental) | 2:41 |
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Total length:
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71:22 | |
| Limited Edition Bonus Disc | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Balsamic and Anathema" | 6:05 | |||||||
| 2. | "A Thousand Hands on the Maid of Ruin" (Instrumental) | 8:04 | |||||||
| 3. | "Into the Crypt of Rays" (Celtic Frost cover) | 4:10 | |||||||
| 4. | "Devil to the Metal" | 6:17 | |||||||
| 5. | "Courting Baphomet" | 5:17 | |||||||
| 6. | "The Love of Death" (Remix) | 5:13 | |||||||
| 7. | "The Death of Love" (Demo) | 7:16 | |||||||
| 8. | "The 13th Caesar" (Demo) | 5:27 | |||||||
| 9. | "Dirge Inferno" (Live) | 6:45 | |||||||
| 10. | "Dusk and Her Embrace" (Live) | 5:46 | |||||||
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