The new CRADLE OF FILTH album is finished; first single to arrive in October
08-07-2024
In a new interview with Hayley Leggs of TotalRock, CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani Filth revealed that the band’s new album is “finished”. He added: “The new single will come out at the beginning of October prior to our European tour… So, yeah, new single prior to the album that’s coming out — I’m going to say end of February, but I’d be lying. ‘Cause I’ve got no idea. But it’s around that time.”
This past May, Filth told Australia’s Heavy about the progress of the recording sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2021’s “Existence Is Futile” album: “We’ve already done our (collaborative) track with (pop superstar and noted CRADLE OF FILTH fan) Ed Sheeran, although that’ll be probably coming out on the special edition of the new album, but I can’t really talk much more about that, all legalities and what have you. We should be dropping a new single, actually, around the time of the Australian tour (in September 2024), maybe a little bit later… (The single) should be (out) probably about the same time, with the album being dropped around March next year.”
He continued: “The album we started last July, and our record company was, like, ‘Why are you taking so long?’ It’s, like, ‘Well, because we’re on tour.’ We started the album (and then) we literally went off on tour for two months. So, yeah, we’ve been very, very busy.”
Asked about the musical direction of the new CRADLE OF FILTH material, Dani said: “It’s a step on from the last record. Same production values, same producer, although we always approach it from a different way, so it does sound a lot different. I can’t go too much into it because no matter what I say, it’s not really gonna justify or do do justice to the tracks on there. It’s very hard to explain. It’s got (elements of) ‘Dusk… And Her Embrace’ vibe-wise. Vocally, it’s a bit of everything. It’s an aggressive record. It’s a very catchy record. Yeah, it’s just something that’s gonna really please our fans. We’ve worked very hard on it. And the last record was received really well, ‘Existence Is Futile’. It’s an advancement from that. But it’s not because I’m being told, ‘Keep it calm. You can’t talk about the record yet.’ It’s very difficult to talk about something that’s got so much in it.”
This past January, Dani told Poland’s Pełna Kulturka about CRADLE OF FILTH‘s next studio album: “It’s a very heavy record. We just upped the game as a band. We moved one step further toward the future from our previous record. We see everything as an evolution, everything as an evolutionary step, everything as a necessary link in the chain. And this album’s gonna be an important record for us — our first for Napalm Records, if you discount, obviously, the live record… But expect the first single probably about September, October time.”
Asked if he had heard Sheeran‘s collaboration with BRING ME THE HORIZON on a new version of the former’s “Bad Habits” song, Dani said: “I did hear it, yeah. They decided to do that after we started working with Ed. ‘Cause we actually did the song with Ed over a year ago now. And before then, the idea happened off the back of ‘Bad Habits’, the album. So, it’s been about two and a half years, and it’s probably gonna be three and a half years before anybody actually hears the song. But it is what it is. Obviously, he’s one of the biggest artists in the world, and we have to kind of abide by his rules because… He’s a lovely guy — don’t get me wrong — but his management, obviously, have his vested interest at heart. And I think this year he’s taking a complete year off. And obviously we want him in the video, so if that’s gonna happen, we have to release that single with him on next year. But that’s not gonna affect the rest of the album.”
Filth originally broke the news about potentially working with the 33-year-old singer/songwriter, who is one of the most successful musicians on the planet, during an interview with Kerrang! Radio”Breakfast Show” at the 2021 Bloodstock Open Air festival in the U.K. At the time, Dani said: “I’ve actually been e-mailing with Ed… He actually touched base with me. I’ve been invited up to his place. Well, he said he could come down to mine, but I pointed out to him that I don’t own my own bar or village, and it’d be better if I went there.
“He said he’d do anything,” he added. “Quite literally. He said he’s a massive fan. He seems like a genuinely very nice guy actually.”
Filth went on to say the prospect of collaborating with someone like Sheeran is not as far fetched as one might think. “We’ve always been like that,” he explained. ‘If someone tells us not to do something, then we’ll do it. That’s been our prerogative the whole time. I did this rap song with this band called TWIZTID in America. It’s actually turned out more like RAMMSTEIN and BEASTIE BOYS than full-on rap. So, in that respect, I think it the Ed Sheeran collaboration would be great fun. I think it’d be great if we did it for charity, because at least it would bring a bit of credibility to it. Because obviously to his public, it’d be, like, Oh my god, he’s got this weird comical guy,’ and to my public it’d be, like, ‘Oh my god, this is a bit weird, isn’t it? But I think that sort of thing nowadays works.”
In July 2021, Sheeran floated the possibility of exploring a more extreme musical path while speaking to The Sun. He said: “I was really into death metal as a kid. I listened to CRADLE OF FILTH and SLIPKNOT and all that stuff. I’m not saying I could ever step into that world. I learnt all those riffs on guitar as a kid. That’s something I’ve never thought about doing — but something I would not be opposed to creating.”
Sheeran had previously dabbled in a variety of genres, including rock, dance, rap and reggae.
After The Sun published Sheeran‘s comments, Filth posted a screenshot of an article headlined “Ed Sheeran is open to recording a death metal album after spending his youth listening to CRADLE OF FILTH” and wrote in an accompanying caption, “I’ll believe it when I see it. Fellow Suffolk lad could come good in the end. ‘Dracula’s Castle On The Hill’ anyone?”
Last yeah, CRADLE OF FILTH released its first live album in over 20 years, “Trouble And Their Double Lives”, via Napalm Records. The LP was recorded between 2014 and 2019 at different performances in the USA, Europe, Australia and beyond during the band’s “Cryptoriana” world tour and dates following. Produced, mixed and mastered by Scott Atkins at Grindstone Studios, with recording captured by Danny B, the effort not only features a slew of fan favorites encompassing the band’s discography but also two bonus tracks and two entirely brand new songs, “She Is A Fire” and “Demon Prince Regent”.
Asked in an interview with Decibel if the two new songs on the record indicate what the next CRADLE OF FILTH album will sound like, vocalist Dani Filth said: “Maybe a little bit but no. It’s pretty hard to explain, I can’t really talk about it. The new album has a ‘Dusk… And Her Embrace’ vibe to it. But no, we moved on from that. We started writing as a collective after that, these were stopgap songs that originally were intended toward a new album but because of the pandemic, it delayed everything and they found themselves out there. We just thought it was best to put them on the new record.”
He added: “A record takes up so much of your time. It’s a monument to a band’s career, a lot of effort gone into it, a lot of time gone into it. It deserves its own sort of place and each album will have its own unique identity that’s in place due to whatever outside due influence is happening at the time. People in the band, when they recorded, there’s so many things that determine what an album’s about. Of course each and every one is hopefully going to have a very strong and different identity to the previous one and also the future one.”
In a separate interview with Echoes And Dust, Filth said the new CRADLE OF FILTH album will “be recorded this year and out next year. We’ve got the live album and then we have our collab with Ed Sheeran coming out later in the year. We’re going to record it in May, but we also will be working on it behind some festivals. A record will be delivered to the record company at the end of the summer. And it’ll be out, I reckon, in April next year.”
Earlier this month, Dani was asked by BLABBERMOUTH.NET if he envisions the next CRADLE OF FILTH studio album staying in the same vein as “Cryptoriana” or “Existence Is Futile”. He responded: “It’s not going to be a million miles away from that. I’ve been working on some of the material today. We’re putting the finishing touches on the songs we’re going to record, whether all of them make the grade or not. It has a ‘Dusk… And Her Embrace’ vibe to them. Musically, it plays across ‘Dusk’ and ‘Midian’, but lyrically, and the vibe of it, it has a ‘Dusk… And Her Embrace’ feel to it. I don’t know why. History repeats itself. Maybe it’s because we wrote ‘Dusk’ around this particular time of year, but it has that vibe. It sounds great, but I would say that, wouldn’t I?”
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