Cradle Of Filth are one of the few bands to not only recognise extreme metal’s bombast, but fully lean into it. Where so many peers screamed in all seriousness about Satan and gore, Dani Filth’s act wove Victorian horror tales with bold string sections and operatic vocals.
Their face paint and bondage gear made the whole package too OTT to ignore, and within a handful of albums the band were the mainstream’s shorthand for audial maximalism. Dani and his gremlins have now spent more than three decades haunting metal’s front lines, and these are the lessons he’s picked up along the way.
