Origin : UK
Genre : Gothic Black Metal
Release : 2012 (Extended Edition)
Album Info / Review
**Cradle of Filth – *The Manticore And Other Horrors*
A Stygian Mini‑Album Revisited**
When a band that lives on the edge of extravagance releases something—whether a proper LP or a contained play of a handful of songs—there is always a moment when the entire catalogue folds around that single. *The Manticore And Other Horrors* feels that way on every beat. It’s short, it’s frenetic, and yet the little assault is a full‑bodied, atmospheric hymnal that takes the listener by the hand and doesn’t let go until the final chord settles into the shadows.
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### Sound
From the instant the opening riff starts hacking a slow, wavering pulse, a sense of imminent dread thickens the air. Data is streamed through a crystal‑clear vocal track into a tight rhythm section that’s both claustrophobic and strangely spacious at once. The instrumental palette leans heavily on E‑string mandolin-tying metal riffs, electronical drone underlays, and a choir of metal‑scoured voices that echo through the mix like hissed curses. The guitars cut crisply through the walls of layered keyboards, while the drums don a panic‑driven double‑bass technique that feels like a creature’s heartbeat in a gory tomb.
What sets the sound apart is how seamlessly the band conjures a sense of mythology. The guitars hiss, the keyboards swell, the drums crash like waves, and Ross’s chanted chants translate into a pinched, almost inhuman language that carries over the percussion with absolute precision. A guest appearance by the choir brings in a choir that feels like an ancient cathedral from another world—heavy, but judiciously placed so that the mix never crescendos to salve.
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### Atmosphere
There’s a particular brand of gothic horror about *The Manticore* that is here not merely borrowed from a lot of 4010s‑ish acts but exists on a dimension of its own. The overall ambiance is that of a storming pilgrimage—growing, bracing, suddenly maddening. It begins like a quiet colonnade strategy, wandering slowly into a raging storm that bursts with an entrancing maelstrom. Every track suggests a new landscape: a lonely crimson desert, a riveted ancient ruin, a frantic mythsheets lecture as drowning. The underlying texture shines through with textures of mirrored sanding, an explosion of yearning, an unwrapped palatine glimmer, and a flyer that creates floodgates like a new wave of lyric.
The atmospheric design is earned by lush string samples, but it’s the intricacies that carry—it’s the overlay of harps, flutes, and dragons of chant that is really draped well over the instrumentation. These elements sit not holistically but indulgingly supported by a forecast or a sight.
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### Riffs
The riffs are classic Cradle, but in whole glimpses that ebb halted from a magical lattice. They travel with the attentive, “mistr
