Review by Felix on February 13, 2022.

Doubtlessly, there is no need to introduce Cradle Of Filth. They have done a lot for the scene, because back in the early days, they were innovative, both musically and lyrically. But the debut was released in 1994 and honestly speaking, the evolution of the band’s trademark sound has come to an end, roughly at the beginning of the third millennium. Existence Is Futile is, sorry for that, predictable.

All these orchestral, theatrical and velvet elements do what they have always done since they were born. In small doses, they add a special aroma. Used permanently, they poison the groundwater of a metal album. The problem is that Dani loves, as we all know, to integrate them wherever he can. This dubious approach and the fact that the album (inclusive of bonus tracks) exceeds the 70 minute mark is a toxic combination. It makes the album drown in its own opulence, although I don’t want to ignore dynamic sequences every now and then.

Of course, there are a handful of good tunes. 'Necromantic Fantasies' – not without reason almost on front position – offers this excellent aura of lascivious female vocals, horizon-illuminating keyboard melodies, and a proper portion of malicious heaviness, not least because of Dani’s mature performance. But I am convinced that black metal was not invented in order to be filled to the brim with bombastic and pompous ingredients. There is no grimness, no bitterness, no misanthropy. Yes, short outbursts of fury can be found, but they do not characterise the material. I have no doubt that the guys are skilful musicians, but their song formula is more or less always the same, despite or precisely because of their complex and excessive structures. Cradle Of Filth suffer from their own perfection and the fact that the production sounds absolutely flawless is only for fools surprising. Unfortunately, perfection is sometimes also a bit boring and this is also true regarding the mix of Existence Is Futile.

On the other hand: even in view of the commercial hype around the ever-busy band, I believe that there is an authentic core. If money were the only motivation for the British circus, sorry: institution, the album would not be full of twists and turns, of 25 different parts per song and multi-layered arrangements. Anyway, after all, due to the many mild parts it lacks intensity. Therefore it does only partially work and the level of excitement does not increase during the playtime of four hours. Or was it even six hours? Don't know. But what I can say is that the once very good tools that Dani uses have become fragile. He should buy some new ones.

Rating: 6.4 out of 10

Review by Michael on October 24, 2021.

Cradle Of Filth are back on track, releasing their third album in a row which is quite convincible. I never thought that this would happen again after the very mediocre releases in the mid-00s and beginning of 2010 but with Hammer Of Witches (2015) and Cryptoriana… (2017) they already showed that they didn´t forget how to write well-arranged, epic and bombastic songs.

Now we have their latest output Existence Is Futile which shows the typical trademarks the Brits also used to have on their previous albums. The listener can find very symphonic keyboard arrangements combined with fast, thriving guitar riffs and pounding drums giving intense speed to the tracks. The album was produced by Scott Atkins who was also responsible for the last four COF albums before, and I would say that he made a very powerful and vivid production. The quite nightmarish Hieronymus Bosch-esque artwork was created by Arthur Berzinsh who also did the fantastic artworks for the previous two albums. Again, he did a fantastic job with this and I guess this artwork is a good reason to get the release as an LP.

What is in my opinion quite new in the compositions is that Cradle Of Filth are somewhat going back into their own past (very long ago) using death and thrash metal elements (maybe the one or the other remembers that they originally started as a death metal band which was heavily influenced by Deicide back in 1992 on their first demos) like in 'Existential Terror' or 'Crawling King Chaos' combined with some dissonant parts in 'The Dying Of The Embers'. Especially this track has a wide range of stylistic devices not only using dissonant sounds but also highly melodic, almost theatrical keyboard arrangements and very catchy riffs which takes the listener on a very varied trip. 'Black Smoke Curling From The Lips' is another great track with very gripping riffs and aggressive leads. 'Discourse Between A Man And His Soul' and 'How Many Tears To Nurture A Rose?' are two very balladic tracks which decrease the tempo of the album and gives the listener the possibility to relax a bit. In these two tracks you can clearly find some Iron Maiden influences in the guitar works, especially when it comes to the galloping riff in 'How Many Tears To Nurture A Rose?'. Both tracks stand out through the very melodic arrangements and keyboards, and it is nice to see that the keyboards don´t get too much space in them but are balanced between the other instruments very well.

One of the stand-out tracks is 'Suffer Our Dominion' which uses some keyboard sounds and spoken words as introduction. The spoken part was done by Doug Bradley (some may know from his role as “Pinhead” in Hellraiser) who also took part in one of the two bonus tracks you can find on the digipak version. I think this track is one of the most serious tracks the band has ever written because it deals with real topics, namely the destruction of the Earth and the results coming along with this. After the introduction the track increases speed, as if to show a musical image what will happen with all the things, we're doing to our planet. What comes to my mind listening to Danis vocals is that he doesn´t use such high-pitched screams as in the past though his voice still sounds very aggressive and powerful. The female vocal arrangements are done by the new COF member Anabelle Iratni who also participated in Danis side-project Devilment. She quite often reminds me of Sarah Jezebel Deva back in 1998 singing on "Nexus Polaris” by Covenant (especially these ahahaaa-parts) which isn´t too bad in my opinion.

Just let get me to the lyrics quickly – where the focus in the past was more on fictional (horror) stories, Cradle Of Filth deal this time more with philosophical topics such as existentialism (like in 'Existential Terror' or 'Us, Dark, Invincible') and real existing dreads like the destruction of the Earth. I think this is quite an interesting fact and worth checking the lyrics and not only the music. The title of the album – Existence Is Futile shall also show that we should live up every second of our life. Or as Death Angel once said: “Death is certain – Life is not”.

If you consider purchasing the album, you should get the digipak because the two already mentioned bonus tracks are also worth listening to. My opinion about Existence Is Futile is that Cradle Of Filth wrote a very intense, aggressive and thrilling album which I like even more than its predecessors.

Rating: 9 out of 10 Pinheads