Metro Theatre, Sydney
Saturday May 12, 2018 :
It’s pretty apt that it’s raining and miserable in Sydney on the Saturday evening when the blackened British bastards known as cradle of Filth roll into town. It’s been 5 years since the corpse painted, Nuclear Blast signed band has been on these shores and the anticipation in the crowd showed it.
But before we got to them the frothing at the mouth crowd was uproariously excited about the only opening band Sonium Nox. Combining ungodly screeching vocals, cacophonous, sonically claustrophobic riffs and pulverising drums, the band hammered through a set of cascading doom over depressive, shoegaze inspired black metal. Did I mention there’s a digeredoo on stage? Well, there was. It was sparsely yet effectively used. Vocalist Ashahalasin was draped in a tattered cloak from head to toe adding to the aesthetic of evil, barely moving but screaming like a possessed banshee he commanded the now 3/4 full metro theatre. The crowd was partially scared and overwhelmingly entranced as the five piece demolished the venue in a wall of sound.
Some might even feel a little bad for Cradle of filth following them but after a short change over the much anticipated headliner came barreling onto the stage with a ripping rendition of ‘Gilded C*nt’ from their 2004 offering Nymphetamine and blow all doubts out of the water. The band are tight, slick and heavy. Having a back catalogue that spans 25+ years and has racked up 12 studio albums and 4 eps it could be difficult for them to cover them all in a 2 hour set but they did well to serve up 13 platters of melodic black metal including their epic 11 minute ‘Aria Bathory’ (from the breakthrough 1998 album Cruelty and the Beast).
Dani Filth spends little time talking to the crowd between songs but when he does his tongue is firmly in cheek. He dedicated the set to the “Founder of Sydney”, Sidney Poitier and apparently the night before in Melbourne was dedicated to Mel Gibson. The crowd lapped up every moment of Dani’s humour. The amount of lineup changes this band has had over the years is hard to keep up with but the current lineup are perfect, old tracks slot in perfectly next to new and they know how to have fun on stage, no “More metal than metal posing”, just smiles, devil horns and head banging.
Highlights from the set include ‘Her Ghost In The Fog’, ‘Dusk And Her Embrace’ and ‘You Will Know The Lion By His Claw. What a wonderful night to be a fan of gothic inspired melodic black metal.
Reviewer : Luke Winchester
Photographer : David Youdell
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