Cradle of Filth has provided such an embarrassment of riches over the last 17 years, since Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder ended that mid period slump, that I almost feel like I can't spend enough time ingesting it all. No, not every album is a masterpiece, few of them are, but they've all been packed with so much riffing, orchestration, creepy Gothic horror and Dani's smut spitting literature that I'm constantly overwhelmed. To that extent, their material does tend to blend together for me, I can forget where one record ends and another begins, but I'll keep buying them for the sheer amount of effort the band brings and the fact that they are unanimously a great listen whenever I'm in a mood for horror metal with an air of sophistication, Halloween season or whenever else.
The Screaming of the Valkyries continues that trend, twisting the Wagnerian imagery conjured by its title into Filth's explosive hybrid of black, thrash, Gothic, symphonic metal, whatever tag you want to place upon it. Though it's still clocking in at nearly an hour, and most songs eclipse the 6 minute range, this feels like one of their most 'compact' efforts in recent memory, perhaps because of how scrappy they get, with a lot of attention-grabbing, choppy thrash grooves that they permeate with the orchestration, theatrics and Dani's varied snarls, sneers, and growl. "To Live Deliciously" and "Demagoguery" are an epic one-two punch combination where the band is firing on all cylinders, reminding me of some of my favorite material from Cruelty and the Beast, only a little heavier due to the production. The band can mete out a semi-complex thrashing groove and then grace us with some melodies and harmonies all within the span of a minute and it fits together like a pale, vampiric hand and leather glove.
That busy, semi-technical death/thrash component is an important contributor through this album, and I'd argue that they use that style just as much as the tremolo picking or dissonant chord-streams we associate more with their black metal roots. I guess it sounds a little more 'modern' as a result, but the concise use of the symphonics, Maiden-like melodies, choir/gang-shouts ("The Trinity of Shadows"), female vocals, and of course Dani's voice and lyrics nail it straight into their discography. It's also not afraid to mellow things out with the morose "Non Omnis Morior" or the doomy passages in the epic closer "When Misery Was a Stranger". Screaming might not have knocked me over as fiercely as its predecessor Existence is Futile, but this is a damn good record which I'd happily rank in the upper half of their catalog, and I've spun it more than other modern fan favorites like Cryptoriana and Hammer of the Witches. Engaging, entertaining, emphatic of those thrashier elements without abandoning the rest of their envelope of sound, this is fun as hell.
Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (By the restless dusk reborn)
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