그 동안 많은 골수팬들이 기다려왔던 영국 서포크 출신의 익스트림 메탈밴드 Cradle of Filth 의 여덟 번째 정규 앨범이다. 본 작은 컨셉트 앨범의 형식으로 악명 높았던 15세기 프랑스 귀족 Gilles De Rais 의 삶에 대한 내용으로 구성되어 있으며 이전 어느 앨범보다 사악하며 강렬한 사운드를 선사하고 있다. 특히 영국배우 Doug Bradly 의 이색적인 내레이션과 “Thornography” 의 믹싱을 담당했던 영국 메탈 밴드 Sabbat 의 기타리스트 Andy Sneap 이 프로듀싱을 맡아 화제가 되었으며 이들의 팬들이라면 반드시 필청할만한 높은 음악적 감흥을 선사한다.
(Gilles de Rais:) "When light no longer rose to kiss me I swore to tear heaven asunder As flights of fallen angels wished me Godspeed on the devil's thunder"
Eclipsing violent centuries Like a dark scar over France Enter the nascent Gilles de Rais A warrior and a scholar He fought for Joan Of Arc Before she met with martyrdom in flames
Far from fairytale A deathshead on his sail A light that would not fail Beneath her spell But the crucifix was veiled When his decadence prevailed In a drench of red regaled He was shat out of Hell
Shat out of Hell
Frozen in iniquity A passion for awe in an age of grief His wealth and power led him on To the tainted gates of Babylon
Born beneath the howling stars In a shower of golden Lys A wolf-cub with the world between his sabre teeth Torn between extremes of faith The pious and the priests He fed the Devil children like he threw his mastiffs meat
Far from fairytale The coffin and the nail Descending to the pale Under the spell Of alchemists who failed To clench the menstrual grail In a drench of red regaled He was shat out of Hell
Shat out of Hell
Grown so morbid without war The wine corrupted, nightmares spored His Lord's betrayal, played no more He beat upon the Devil's door
Demanding pleasures to replace Joan Of Arc, her epic grace Had set aflame his wolfheart with her truth And when she died, his life of pride Was lost to God and in his crimes He turned to raising Satan with the proof
Soon nightly, unsightly Offerings were made on a vulgar altar And slowly, but surely The darkness answered like a falling star
Far from fairytale Insanity exhaled A full-blown winter gale Under it's spell Innocents assailed Were entered and impaled In a drench of red regaled He was shat out of Hell
Shat out of Hell
Perverse, seductive, cruel as sin An egotist, he mourned Both war and glory, schooled to win Whatever bored imagination spawned
Gilles de Rais monologue: "Her penultimate sighs Called softly on the kindling wind Her saintly eyes filling with tears Lifting with truth
And then, a golden flash like the onset of Heaven Leaving her screams breaking my heart And in the grip of fire I knew the death of love"
Where will you be they tense for warfare? What will you see with your innocent stare? Where will you be my darling? Where will you be they tense for warfare?
Where will you be when God is glorifying? There we will be between the dead and dying Where will you be my darling? Where will you be when God is calling for me?
Prophecies of glory forge a massive disdain For lying passive in the shadows whilst the enemy reigns Devoted to the votive, holy standard above By command of the king of Heaven Came the death of... love
Where will you be when they're vilifying? How will they see when the truth is blinding? Where will you be my darling? Where will you be when they vilify me?
Where will you be when the dark is rising? How will you keep from its terrorizing? Where will you be my darling? Where will you be when the dark is rising?
Burning was the sunset like a portent of doom On the saintly iron maiden as she fell from her wound
But visions and ambition Never listened to submission And she was on a mission from the highest above To Lord upon the slaughter Like a sword through hissing water She arose where archers sought her For the death, the death of love
The righteous death of love
Gilles adored her drama Her suit of pure white armor Blazed against the English in a torrent of light
And as they rallied onto night A cancer fled his soul Dissolving
Framed amidst the thick of fire Aflame, a Valkyrie She made him click without desire And in his eyes she swam a Goddess
And even when they caught her breath Her words would leave a scar
For only in the grip of darkness Will we shine amidst the brightest stars
How will you breathe when their wheels are turning? How will you know if the sky is burning? Where will you be my darling? How will you breathe when their wheels are turning?
Where will you be when Babel builds my fire? Will you not flee and label me pariah? Where will you be my darling? Where will you be when they light my pyre?
Aligned with Joan in all that was enthroned and divine He swore to score the crimes Jackdaws poured on this dove Crimes he knew alone derived from minds of the blind The church unfurled for murder perched upon the death of love
Framed amidst the thick of fire Aflame, a Valkyrie She claimed the sky was lit with spires And in his eyes she swam a Goddess
And even when she fought, for breath Her words would leave a scar
For only in the grip of darkness Will we shine amidst the brightest stars
[Gilles de Rais:] Oh how my rampant desire Ripped from the presence of God Now hunger like a beast For the knowledge of evil
When Joan was burnt He knew malevolence At the heart of all A cold and jagged abyss bled of sense The throne he earned Through God's benevolence Started his own fall Clothing ragged dogma in his own magnificence
Here the stench, the gold events The bold inventions of the will Luxuries and splendors past the ken of mortal men Every wanton bent desire went fulfilled
A Daemon sat upon the top of the world Like a Herod over Genesis They sang hosannas as his banners unfurled Kissing terrors with paralysis
His brash canvas insulted the view moving heaven and earth to please the Tumultitudes, whom his strange retinue drew To assert the thirteenth Caesar
The thirteenth Caesar Ichor kicked inside his veins The thirteenth Caesar War was licked, for shame The thirteenth Caesar Sicker, but just as vain The thirteenth Caesar Gilles De Rais
When Joan was burnt He knew malevolence At the heart of all He swore henceforth he would serve evil alone
Here the stench, the gold events The insurrection of his will Theatre and feasts past the ken of mortal men Every wanton bent desire went fulfilled
A Daemon sat upon the top of the world Like a Herod over Genesis Devils sang hosannas as his banners unfurled Striking terror into menaces
The thirteenth Caesar Ichor kicked inside his veins The thirteenth Caesar War was licked, for shame The thirteenth Caesar Sicker, but just as vain The thirteenth Caesar Gilles De Rais
Suetonius and Ovid Filled his moonstruck dreams With the purple of Rome
His Venus of arena-blood was dead And he was storming home
The thirteenth Caesar Ichor kicked inside his veins The thirteenth Caesar War was licked, for shame The thirteenth Caesar Sicker, but just as vain The thirteenth Caesar Gilles De Rais
The thirteenth Caesar Ichor kicked inside his veins The thirteenth Caesar War was licked, for shame The thirteenth Caesar Sicker, but just as vain The thirteenth Caesar Gilles De Rais
Here sat Babylon Fattened by the purses of the worst and wrong Where the decadent tastes of Hell grew strong Like a curse upon This tragic kingdom
Dusk descended like a final curtain On this stage only death was certain Singing through the turrets Like a velvet serenade
Played near a grave
Sentries and gentry, afforded the bloom Of a red setting sun and a bloodletting moon Applauded, then accorded them Portents of doom
Almost too soon...
They pissed upon the winds That rocked the cradles Laughing over those hovels grovelling to wolves They kissed and sinned Under overstocked tables As the world outside grew sodden and mauled
Here sat Babylon Fattened by the purses of the worst and wrong Where the decadent tastes of Hell grew strong Like a curse upon This tragic kingdom
Gilles sat sipping absinthe From a goblet made of bone As lightning ripped and danced upon The flagstones Wayward fantasies marched on home
Now the treetops bowed to whisper In a thin Disney veneer They knew the howls so exquisitely honed Were those of children, disappeared
They'd listened to the winds Heard the murdered Abel Re-christened in the stone jaws of Tiffauges
Where the list of sins Grew beyond a fable They now roared abroad, restless with debauch
Restless with debauch
Restless with debauch This tragic kingdom Would see God's angels walk Away...
Satanic, enigmatic His black magic was ecstatic Megalomaniac in titanic displays Dressed in the best Wicked britches of the West He cut a mourning figure in glorious swathe
But all his nightmares would come true Drowning in a stream of conscious pleasure
Here sat Babylon Fattened by the purses of the worst and wrong Where the decadent tastes of Hell grew strong Like a curse upon This tragic kingdom
Like a curse upon This tragic kingdom
The moon bleared through the skeletal trees Averting her face from congenital deeds
Thus eves grew murky, haunted, grieved About this place laced with demon seed
Blanchet, a priest, his book of lies Exonerated him from Gilles' crimes Announced his fears, one night of sighs A night for cursing nursery rhymes In the light of the fire wrestling feckless shadows
The tracks get blacker for this tragical kingdom
Gilles' frightening wealth, his tightening grip On the weak and the rubies that his coffers let slip Steered to near ruin in successive years Of the most of excess and the best of it here In the light of the fire wrestling reckless shadows
[Gilles de Rais:] I conjure you Barron, Satan, Beelzebub By the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit By the Virgin Mary and all the saints To appear, in person So that you may speak to us And fulfill our desires
Come at my bidding And I will grant you Whatever you want, however vile And the containing of my life
He would rise triumphant All done up On a plume of craven wings Trafficking with sycophants Sharing his cup Amidst other graver things
Alchemists and sorcerers stitched his head With the stench of pitch and myrrh
The devout faded out but the pagan remained The candles burnt low and still nothing came Bearing golden secrets from a cold malevolent race
He would have his demon He would have his vice All save his soul was up for sacrifice Despite their raising not a single hair Everything stank of witchcraft there
From the stained chapel to the statued lawn In Caprineum on the lake To the still lit crypts and the slit of dawn Sliding down the towers, it all smelt fake
He needed answers not advice Intending to devise A lengthy train of torture for the fool Who thought a seance would suffice Or sighted, furred in dragonflies The signature of Satan on a wall
Sweetest Maleficia
Alchemists and sorcerers stitched his head With the stench of pitch and myrrh
Planchette to Blanchet, from ghosts to a priest Returning with a spider for the poisonous feast The Italian astrologer Prelati, spinning sin
His fingertips were scented with The tears from seraphim cheeks Part glamour and a hammer Cadaverous and glib Commanding in a voice of frozen peaks
He would have his demon He would have his gold Out of control Gilles' soul was sold Under mistletoe and the glistening snow Kissing in the shadow of abandoned saviors
[Gilles:] So I shall conjure thee Demons of the netherworld
The air was sick with trepidation Despair and desperation Then he fixed his covenant in blood Now all was rich and tapestried Fragrant wine to shitty mead His new world opened with a claret flood
Time was right, this wretched night To etch the circles clear again...
As a labyrinth of razors led a blind man to the stars So too Prelati brought the dark It's name was Barron, eyes like catastrophic tar Imbibed with fire They fed him shredded infants on an altar full of scars
Entangled in a dream The mirrors full of steam He scarce could see Joan's face reflecting through
His last attempt to grasp at God Lay blackened in a holy fog And now there were only devils to pursue
Gilles was wrapped in a velvet spell Of Hell and her seductions
The assassinated days as a Caesar gone by Barron, spitting acid, as his magical guide Lit demonic pyres where once dying embers writhed
"So potent was the star under which I was born, that I have done what no one in the world has done, nor can ever do..."
Praeclarum Custodem Ovium Lupum
All Saints Day, the taint of rain Blood and mud and thunder all the same To those who close their ranks to Gille's men
Bricqueville, Prelati and De Sille Creatures of the dark creeping up and down the countryside Little angles out to pastume once again
Torture garden rules of thumb apply To sacred flesh and the naked eye Golgothic this erotica Stinking of honey and worse, sulphur
So black was the magic in this tragical kingdom The superstitions grew Wise to the wolves that surprised their children Gagged in sacks and dragged back to
Tiffauges It's roads now home to a beautiful stranger Lifting her veil Spinning her lies Tender eyes, never-ending danger
It grows A rose that chose death for it's bedmuck Prickles in wait Thanking her spies Trickling thighs her only hiccup
And though she walks the forest trails She's far from innocent or frail She leads them down the path where darkness dwells
That night is rife with celebration The tower sings Where so much foul illumination Strikes a lighthouse for the things That slither and slather at the border of the pentagram Mid sour dreams A beauty pageant for the gathering damned Of slaughtered lambs and tortured screams
Praeclarum Custodem Ovium Lupum
Torture garden rules of thumb apply To sacred flesh and the naked eye Golgothic this erotica Stinking of honey and worse, sulphur
So black was the magic in this tragical kingdom In this castle of loup-garou When moonstruck veins, inflamed, deranged on A parcel of victims now tied to
Tiffauges Engorged on the hordes of the anorexic Cherubim forced Naked and blind A holocaust mind designed their exit
A libertine so grim Sometimes tore them limb from limb Slitting their throats Pissing on graves Jesus save but the devil made him
[Gilles de Rais:] Sometimes I beheaded them, with daggers, with poignards, with knives Sometimes I suspended them in my room from a pole, or by a hook and cords and strangled them And when they were languishing, I committed with them the evils of the flesh
The evening air laps thick about The stagnant moat that Tiffuages claims As dusk now slips away Where taught to run, the rotten tongue Of a hotter Gotterdamerung Has started licking like a flame
Whispers in the dismal mist Are full of crystal promises
Black rites begun in earnest Ignite Hell's hungry furnace
Behold the bold inauguration of the dark side Demonic passions climbing Ill-fated stars aligning
Tonight these sights are guaranteed to feed the master The tide of blood is rising His gifts will be providing
Unmasked, the phantom lord de Rais Haunts the furthest tower Wherein death has sucked the hour
There, throttled gasps are tantamount to foreplay And drooling razors next to come Unspool red secrets from the young
The moon grinned full, the games were chaste When the children first arrived Now midnight shadows crawl apace To darken council with their lives
Flesh and ecstasy as sport Are immortal vices of the highest order Wherein devilry holds sway Behold blind walls where these cockatrice squalled Their songs of Necronomicon Spoke out of Gilles de Rais
Behold the bold inauguration of the dark side Demonic passions climbing Ill-fated stars aligning
Tonight these sights are guaranteed to feed the master The tide of blood is rising His gifts will be providing
Unmasked, the phantom lord de Rais Haunts the furthest tower Wherein death has sucked the hour
There, throttled gasps are tantamount to foreplay And drooling razors next to come Unspool red secrets from the young
Each murdered son, each frozen rose Handpicked, was gently fed To the sumptuous one in black and those Whose lives where thrown in with the dead
The candles lit, the stage was set As it was in sainted days When censers swung and banners hung On the Siege of Orleans on the painted Seine
Now the castle floats in the drifting fog Torn from it's moorings Like a shipwreck dredged from Hell As innocents entreat a shifting God Their voices soaring On a silver tide to heaven On a knife edge as they fell
The blade would plunge in virulent arcs Such wounds would stretch away By the fireside, warmed to creative sparks Of the monster Gilles de Rais
Gilded Gilles de Rais
Comets vomited The restless bells of crime Peeled black skin from broken bones Of angels cut from the nicks of time
Festering faces with painted eyes The prettiest kept to be thrust inside Gaping necromantic from the mantle-side Caked in kissed goodbyes
Caked in kissed goodbyes
Days faded in decay The stench of perfume lied No horror in the glades of man Was left for Barron to provide
So unique was the beat of his poisoned heart And it's sordid, morbid crack No further atrocity could possibly surpass Unrewarded, bored, he turned his burning back
The evening air laps thick about The moat that Tiffuages claims As dusk now slips away Where taught to run, the rotten tongue Of a hotter Gotterdamerung Has started licking like a flame
'Something thicker than despair Rides upon the midnight air The smell of blood, the taste of prey We spy you hiding Gilles de Rais'
Under August swelter After banquet and soiree When spiced wine and song Have further heated veins To the ninth degree as tenacula Hold another body in their sway Gilles retires from the grasping fires That will ashen the remains
Darkness incarnate
Demons in his semen That once clung about the throats Of children dragged from cellars to his rooms Now permeate the castle All who sleep dream of the goat That dark eclectic harbinger of doom
Nightingales sang of tragedy Whispers were made of blasphemy Vain, insane, this brute aloof Drew tainted veils over bitter truth
The stairs ran helterskelter His bedchamber besieged By phantoms who sheltered In it's furs, remorse They sought to overwhelm him Like a lantern of disease That shone on rotten faces Of those murdered out in force
Darkness incarnate
Fleeing ghosts so indisposed To his Satanic love Of children dragged from cellars to his feast He rose, a carnal wind opposed To those that sat above Tearing out into the forest like a beast
The night wind sang of tragedy Whispers were made of blasphemy Vain, insane, this brute aloof Drew painted sails over naked truth
Madness clouded everything Like a lycanthropic shroud And through it's ghastly lineaments he saw The trees become obscenities Semen drip from every bough As if he rooted Nature like a whore
Dryads tongued under skirts of leaves Surrendering branches that slenderly pleased The mocking orifices and the forest on her knees
Then once besotted, knotted trunks now grew Rotten, venereal, cancerous, blue The clotting of his heart to a rank cantankerous tune
[Gilles de Rais:] Death is only a matter of a little pain
Beneath the sallow moonlight In a wonderland of pain Gilles fled back through the castle Terrified and drained He sought his deep red velvet bed And the sleep it preordained Exhausted, forced into the dead The creep of nightmares came again
Sadness clouded everything Like a lycanthropic shroud And through it's ghastly lineaments he saw Hundreds of slain children Some came crawling disemboweled To where he stretched out howling on all fours
Corpses tore at his legs and knees As he clawed to the cross, begging reprieve From a Lord that soared above the awful scene
He sobbed and wept, no voice was left To scream, the dream was not drubbed yet He heard the horrors hiss beside him, 'Herod, you'll regret...'
'Who hears the tears of nightfall? Who steers the spears so spiteful?'
[Gilles:] Oh my dearest angels Go pray to God for me
Awaking in a sweat Forsaking pleasure for regret Another night of blight had slowly passed The morning skies once fresh and bright Darkened down to near twilight Once could smell the end of days were coming fast
Gilles wandered as in purgatory Beyond the grave of his estate Neither Heaven, Hell or peasantry Were present save projected hatred
He knew suspicion, he felt derision And fear like a sharpened stake Pierced his heart, and now the start Of his unknitting began to take
Vain glorious, a Lord, devout? He thought his soul exempt From guilt and doubt, there's no way out Ten leagues beneath contempt
Awaking in a sweat Forsaking pleasure for regret His choired chapel sighed with his laments As accusations reached a roar Investigations breached the door He put up nothing save his favours in defense
The Church stirred in it's Roman lair The grease had long been spent Now all tongues spat at Tiffauges there Ten leagues beneath contempt
[Gilles de Rais:] Alas, I was happier in the enjoyment of tortures, tears, fright, and blood Than in any other pleasure
Just one falter One misplaced deed And Gilles would be undone As he teetered on the verge of defeat
Profaning God's altar Bursting in on evening Mass He threatened there to crucify the priest
Drunk on fiery wine With the storm lashing behind He then threw this Philistine To his foulest dungeon
And money owed or not The Priest released or left to rot His blatant sacrilege begot A war machine of papal Rome
They came for him in mourning splendor With the blessing of the Saints His fawning grin in sweet surrender A lesson in enforced restraint
He knew suspicion, he felt derision And fear like a sharpened stake Pierced his heart, and now the start Of his unknitting began to take
He thought courts bought with golden crowns Rich Bishops he could tempt But traitor's gate was sought and found Ten leagues beneath contempt
Burning like derision on the prism of night Still squirming from the sermon, those determined parasites Meant to overpower and bedizen his light He paced his tower prison with a dissonant appetite The moon was black
Devil may care Three times he'd glared before his judges Darkening there With a Wormwood mind And a gullet of poison
Asked He thought the court a farce His tongue as sharp as glass A bastard to the last This truth assassin...
..tautened his claws at the ruinous cast Flexing vexation at clerics aghast In uproar he caused the cross to be masked And the hex of exile from God's Kingdom passed
Back in the mirror, shattered vanity died The curse even clearer on the sanity side Banished from the lavish tracts of paradise From Heaven's shores poured to the sore divide
The moon was black
Devil may care Their thunder sundered all his veils Thickening there His belligerent pulse To a sickening crawl
Yes He'd fostered wickedness Fed vipers at his breast Inflicted death's caress So now to suffer...
He'd burn, discern That his second turn Would last for eternity In reckoning flames
That night his plight marched in demented parades O'er a rainbow of black magic scars The blood ran to fear, turned to torment in spades Deep in the sleep of this heretic, barred
The nightmares were livid, occultist, depraved His epiphany struggled to come But dawn found him there, redemptive, prepared Like Christ to Golgotha, his face to the sun
All fears were smeared When Joan had appeared In a shower of tears Last vestige of innocence
Yearning for her vision of divinity Of her miracles and dreamt lyrical deeds
He would meet her at the pyre as the fire kissed And together they'd climb to God, entwined in bliss
Devil may care He awed the court with a sworn confession Quickening there His radiant death And acute renewal
Thus The end was glorious He went like Jesus trussed To shadow and to dust At the stroke of seven
And With thieves at both his hands The Reaper of these lands Wept with holy plans As he choked to heaven
[Gilles de Rais:] I have told you the truth And everything as it happened
All the evil that I could do has been accomplished I am redeemable, and I believe the clemencies of God And suffrages of the holy church Have succored me with much mercy