LIVE REVIEW: Cradle of Filth @ indigo at The O2, London

Tonight is a special night. It’s Halloween weekend in London and the legendary goth metal act CRADLE OF FILTH are wrapping up their hugely successful Dark Horses and Forces European Tour with their Monstrous Sabbat show. A headline set with full production in one of the most state of the art, unique venues in the whole of the United Kingdom and they have brought a plethora of exciting young bands with them for good measure.

Opening act NARAKA take to the stage as the state of the art venue slowly starts to fill. The band give it everything they’ve got and ensure that they give every last drop of their energy as they plough through their set of groovy, symphonic metal. With the mix of powerful, guttural screamed vocals and melodic baritone hooks, the band brought a performance that ensured that there is a little something for everyone.

Rating: 7/10

RED METHOD may well be the surprise of the evening. The London-based sextet hit the stage and set about raising the energy levels in the venue in a hail of breakdowns, mosh pits and headbanging. Beating the audience over the head with a sound that encompasses everything from metalcore, industrial, nu-metal and tech metal. All of this is delivered by a group of musicians who seem like they are having the times of their lives and by the end of the set they have the crowd in their palm of their collective hands.

Rating: 8/10

From the moment the lights go down and ALCEST hit the stage the entire crowd is swept up in a transcendent display of progressive and expansive sounds. From the opening chords of Les jardins de minuit to the triumphant crescendo of Deliverance, the crowd is encapsulated by the performance. The seamless transitions between ethereal beauty and raw savagery are delivered with the kind of surgical precision with what we have come to expect from one of the most exciting bands in the world right now. With performances of this level from a support act, the question has to be asked of how long before this French quartet are headlining venues of this size the world over.

Rating: 9/10

A special night such as this calls for a special band. Enter CRADLE OF FILTH. The band have spared no expense tonight in the putting on a memorable show as the stage looks like something straight out of Dante’s Inferno. Less than thirty seconds into opening track Existential Terror fire is bellowing from the front of the stage, with the band running around as though they are possessed and frontman Dani Filth overseeing everything like some kind of evil ringmaster. Summer Dying Fast has been a staple of the band’s setlist for some years now and its clear to see why as the crowd go understandably nuts, giving the classic track the kind of love it deserves.

A surprise inclusion of I Am The Thorn from the polarising Thornography era of the band shows that time can be a great healer and just how well certain songs can translate to a live setting, and even provides one of the highlights of the night when Dani fires of a perfectly timed confetti cannon at the pinnacle of the track. They then follow it up with one of the their most violent tracks in years in Crawling King Chaos. By this point the fans are in raptures and the ever-charismatic frontman has them eating out of the palm of his corpse painted hands, regaling them with his usual dark humour and anecdotes before diving into the band’s most radio-friendly song Nymphetamine (Fix), giving singer/keyboardist Zoe Marie Federoff a chance to show off her impressive vocal abilities. A moment that she seizes with both hands and breathes fresh life into the fan favourite.

The setlist tonight offers a little bit of everything. From classic staples of the band’s discography such as A Gothic Romance (Red Roses for the Devil’s Whore) and Scorched Earth Erotica through to fresh cuts such as Us, Dark, Invincible (from last year’s Existence Is Futile) they all get the same care and attention, delivered with the same kind of ferocity that you would expect from a band the fraction of the age of this legendary act.

Plenty of black and extreme metal gatekeepers have tried and failed miserably over the years to discredit the Suffolk-born purveyors of death and romance. Yet, despite this fact and the ever-changing line up over the years, CRADLE OF FILTH have never faltered or showed any signs of a dip in form. And that is never more prominent than in the final combination of the night through Gilded Cunt and Her Ghost In The Fog. A sensational choice in closing track that ironically sends the gothic contingent home with the biggest smiles on their faces that you can imagine.

Often imitated, but never equalled. CRADLE OF FILTH are a benchmark in British extreme metal and have proved it again here tonight in the big smoke. Sensational.

Rating: 9/10

Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in London from Sarah Tsang here: 

Like CRADLE OF FILTH on Facebook.