Midian (album)

Midian
Cover art by JK Potter
Studio album by Cradle of Filth
Released	31 October 2000
Recorded	Parkgate Studios, Battle, East Sussex, England, June–August 2000
Genre	Extreme metal
Length	58:58
Label	Music for Nations (Europe) Koch (US)
Producer	John Fryer
Cradle of Filth chronology
From the Cradle to Enslave (1999) Midian (2000) Bitter Suites to Succubi (2001)
Alternate cover
Limited leather "digibook" edition

Midian is the fourth studio album by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth. It was released on 31 October (Halloween) 2000, through Music for Nations. The album marks the return of guitarist Paul Allender to the band, as well as the introduction of drummer Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, The Haunted) and keyboard player Martin Powell (My Dying Bride, Anathema).

The album was reissued in 2012 by The End Records.^[1]

Thematic inspiration

Midian is inspired by English author Clive Barker's novel Cabal and his subsequent film version Nightbreed. Dani Filth explained to the magazine Empire in September 2012:

We loved Cabal, The Damnation Game and The Books of Blood, and we liked that everything had "Clive Barker presents..." on it before people even knew who he was. That gave it an air of mystery: you should know who this is, but you don't. Midian kind of is and isn't a concept album: as a title, it just made perfect sense. The central song, "Tortured Soul Asylum", is about Midian, and the characters in the rest [of the album] made up a sort of collective from this mythical place where the monsters live.^[2]

Doug Bradley, who played the role of Lylesberg in Nightbreed (but is better known as Pinhead from Barker's Hellraiser and its sequels), provides narration on some tracks.

In the Bible, the "Midianites" are an Arab tribe descended from Abraham, and Midian itself is where Moses spent his forty-year exile from Egypt. The biblical Midianites take their name from Midian, a son of Abraham, and one of his concubines. Today, the former territory of Midian is found through small portions of western Saudi Arabia, southern Jordan, southern Israel and the Sinai. The people of Midian are also mentioned extensively in the Qur'an, where the name appears in Arabic as Madyan. The Midian of Cabal and Nightbreed is a hidden city offering shelter for monsters away from humanity.

The song "Cthulhu Dawn" invokes the character from horror writer H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

The opening line of "Lord Abortion" ("Care for a little necrophilia?") is a quote from Terry Gilliam's film Brazil (voiced by Kim Greist in the film, but delivered here by Toni King, frontman Dani Filth's wife).

Release

At the time it was considered their most commercial and accessible album to date.

"Her Ghost in the Fog" spawned a music video, which received heavy rotation on MTV2 and other rock channels, and was directed by Alex Chandon (who also directed the 2001 horror film Cradle of Fear in which Dani Filth appeared). "Swansong for a Raven", a track on Cradle's 2004 album Nymphetamine, is a sequel to the song. "Her Ghost in the Fog" appeared on the soundtrack for Ginger Snaps in 2000 and in the videogame Brütal Legend in 2009.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Chronicles of Chaos	8.5/10[4]
Exclaim!	favourable[5]
NME	7/10[6]

NME called it "one of the most ludicrous records you'll ever hear", though their review was favourable.^[6]

Track listing

All lyrics written by Dani Filth, all music composed by Cradle of Filth, except "For Those Who Died" written by Andy Sneap and Martin Walkyier.

Personnel

Charts

References

External links

• JK Potter art