Cradle of Filth Damnation and a Day 1. A Bruise Upon The Silent Moon "And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep..." 2. The Promise Of Fever In the beginning Rimmed with wind and storm A great black wrath of infinite math Spat snarling into form And there was Heaven Lit up with precious stones Each one could fall but for the rule Of Faith and love and stronger thrones And therein rose vast wonders Affections to be seen Fathered from the plundered Reflections of a dream Fogging into nightmare For him whose place was set With wayward stars that absent, marred All creation with their theft In the beginning Bewinged and ringed with dawn This favoured Avatar, enthralled Swansongs from those that thronged this shore With Gabriel and Michael He shone with fierce intent For loyalty, their joy to see Him spur the hymns to heaven (sent) For sculptured lips of seraphim Whom fate then cruelly rent (With sleight fingered strains of harmony) Each note to grim portent As grinning nimbus gathered Over spires arabesque For Him that blazed with holy praise That for a jealous God was meant Shining Feriluce Lustrous scourge of fallen spirits Basked in glory, flew To lakes in sacred altitudes Sweet haunting music swathed the breeze With curling tongues that lapped the lead As through thick mountain mist (with thoughts adrift) Until at last, past grasping trees He paused to draught forbidden streams That whispered siren promises To drown his thirst (for sports amiss) These waters held secrets Like raped Russian dolls Wherein evil and good Tore his soul for control And drunk with the verse of desire's first words The weight of the universe Slunk in rehearsed Horror in numbers too great to discern The rotting of worlds to the conqueror worm And love a rare orchid so fragile in bloom Espied gasping breath under dark sheeted moons Shining Feriluce Reflected in jaded mirror Climbing from the noose Of time in divine servitude And thus a strange new melody Of will and wanton fantasies Whetted by the veiled, seen Danced from his ashen lips In red dawn scores, the silver scream Of truth and her deleted scenes Was taken up as far, it seemed As God his words eclipsed (Those waters hid visions Like butchers in war Perverting the course Of life's blood evermore...) In the beginning Skinned well with gibbous tones Of countenance and ignorance In equal measures sewn A marbled arc of Angels Sworn to the morningstar Shared His pride and deep inside Felt Chill Shadows sweep their cards 3. Hurt And Virtue Distant vistas Swathed in the haze Of the reddening sunset Fell to whispers 'Neath stars that marred descending skies From the cusp of midnight mountains Wending as a mist Rebels truced with Feriluce (In truth, few could resist) Came praising his hellraising through The sparse and marble clime Where Virtue bathed, their ravings made Her fountains flood with wine Lifted with the gift Of their dark seductive songs She drifted from the path She was surely set upon Courting chaos Prized in sight Of the covering angel Taught in ways of Smothering another lover Other than God Worshipped in each other's arms Like spider eidolons The moon conducted like a charm Those strange attachments on And this is how they came to be Dragged before the throne Through tongues that hung whilst theirs were run On soft white throats and punctured moans Though fated now than later By his tutor that had been He baited the Creator With the future he had seen Of Michael, psyched with jealousies A reich right by His side And worming Man about to be The apple of His eye His children lost to free will And the cost of beaten hearts Like the night 'twixt vice and Virtue When Her kiss became a scar Seraph enemies Why has my lord forsaken my judgment Am I not free as He to indulge my darkest fantasies? From embittered lips These words were slaved Split with the whips Of their witch hunt gathered He sought Her grave Midst drowning crowds that howled in rage... Blasphemer! Blasphemer! Though she was gone Not lyriced to the song of their spirited throng But ghosted back where she belong... A grace embracing Michael In a lace of tears that bleared his pride He swallowed Blood followed Though with spit for all things divine Though with spit for all things so fucking blind His seal He tore And to the floor He threw this tie to heaven Signifying holy war And watchful of this sign A thousand flames, unauthorised Left celestial posts To coalesce and, unified Return their fallen leader As he turned one final time And threw a glance Like a downward lance That stung like guilt in every mind 4. An Enemy Led The Tempest As pride precedes the downfall So he took His place before the firewall Of dissonant choirs whose faith in one Was embraced in this wraith whose fate was hung Between forgiveness and the damage done An electric scent over drear decay Lent a violent surge to their serenades Through white glades as His winged parade Bent to silhouette and to sharpen dull razors Within vast skies unversed in starkness His might grew And blew light hues to grey... And worse, a third of stars to darkness Then thunder seethed And wreathed in thickening night A line was drawn midst wrong and right And across the throat of thieves As love fell choked, the tempest broke From Heaven's farthest shore Descending to eclipse all hope Repentance might stay holy war He would not heel nor fake a bow Murmur curses to the wind Enraged, he raved in balrog howls Upon a storm firstborn of sin Incensed anew, rebellious tore Like frenzied beasts of prey Through temple doors... Thrown east before the midnight masses And where once bliss reigned so serene In sweeter glades Now veins ran openly... Like eyes that shed from kindred ashes When suddenly There shone a hideous light And a voice like three insanities Soared up in thistled speech "Thou hast bred hate where there dwelt none And for this grave mistake How thou art fallen Morning Sun The proud will be abased" He would not heel nor fake a bow Murmur curses to the wind And lo, the wrath of god swept down... "Thou art no more an angel filled With light, but a leech to be abhorred And thou shalt suffer My burning will"... Quoth this raven: "Nevermore" Nevermore And with these words like heavy stone Cast against that gilded throne With many legions still in tow He turned his wings to flee His eyes a picture of distaste Drawn to tears and in their place The dawn of time and fates to face Through all eternity... I wept for him a deep red river That ran like blood through scarred ravines To sluice away the guilt that slithered Like a serpent tongue to Eve For once as I, in heaven climbed Too high for truth to truly see My sunken mind, drunken and blind Saw the lie: The fool was Me... Alone and cold, face to the crack Beyond the dark gates with no way back His crown of gold faded to black Like a bruise upon the heart that lingers With thrill-kill culture shock wave lengths Of rope to hang high Ten commandments by... Snaked about his upraised fingers 5. Damned In Any Language (A Plague On Words) "And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon, and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not. Neither was their place found anymore in Heaven. And the Great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into the Earth and his angels were cast out with him." [Revelations 12:7-9] 6. Better To Reign In Hell Heart in hand passed clasp of pain In dark lowland that set bad blood in veins Burning, like penal fires roused to strain The jagged-toothed skyline braced with crosses The golden dawn Lay lost to mist where Emboldened thorns Made their bed with toppled stones He closed His eyes Sunken to dream there Of crow-black skies And a great white empty throne Horror stalked the bilious fogs That balked his visions He licked the spittle from the cheeks of the wry And drifted back to when His stung its target The sneer of Michael on a glorious high Of angel dust and Virtue by his side Drowning in the past That downfall seemed like yesterday Though blurred moons passed As enemies in high places laughed Moved to mirrors cracked with heavy lines He rose snowblind, through shifting sands of time Erased the trace and taste of bitter wines The grapes of wrath grew fat on the vine She came to Him A little whip of tantrums Thrashed on velvet skins That lines Her wishbone Henge Her name was Sin A warming spurt of mantras Splashed on occult tongues That whispered sweet revenge For the shame of their crawl from grace Cold and hollow as the grave And for a rape and ruinous scourge Spared for souls that shared God's worship For now their throats coated notes with dirge That poured from parapets to the pits below Drowning in the past A wretched scream like yesterday Died at last With the rising of the revenant dark All sharpened claws and blunt discharge "I shall bow no more to the dogs of the Lord Tearing at my carcass heart I shall fall to my knees only at the keyholes Of Virtue slipping into bondage masks... Freewill made me better to reign in hell" And with new wings Unfurled and spoken He took to things That would desecrate the world The seduction of both woman and man For a bastard masterplan Drowning out the past Fool Fates unwound cruel yesterdays beneath the stars That staggered from the blast 7. Serpent Tongue [Part 1] So adept was unspoken Man At dusting ledgers of the seraphim That Lilith swept across the broken land In a whirl of lust to pleasure him This bland Adam, a reaper of the sun In bone dry season, for Eve was busy sucking thumbs Pricked in rosy gardens as he spattered into shells And ran with morning fauna; His mastiffs and gazelle Breathless as the wind Adam, prowled, fell foul to Sin But not before She spread Her grin Across His silent lips At crack of day, though what was shame? The raptor's nest wherein they lay Bore witness to Her soft parade Of fingers come to grips His undivine attention won She deftly spun From 'neath His thrusts to writhe above In ecstasy Pendulous She swung As if her limbs imbibed His tongue To spill, as with His rod The secret name of God But no seed passed those fruitful lips For fearing Her who grasped, He slit Her throat from ear to where She fled With tail and blood between Her legsss... [Part II] So very kept was the virgin hand That brushed the treasures of Utopia And how the greed swept across the desert sands In late August just to measure Her This hallowed Eve, a creature of the moon A simple dish born with a silver spoon Giddy sniffing orchids that opened after dusk Incubus and Prudence, two such swoon to touch Her Restless as the skies Temptation, bloomed, found room to rise And snatching breaths between Her thighs He crawled to Eve... At dead of night, the sticky clime Smelt perfect to this serpentine This shining Angel Palled in mysteries... Her undivine attention won He deftly spun A web of for the one Great sacred tree Bejewelled and lit As if a thousand shades did flit About boughs of forbidden lore Hidden for the want of more And when seeds passed those fruitful lips And Mankind basked in vast eclipse A Devil shot of thin disguise Surmised to better paradise 8. Carrion Lurking in the shade Of dark and fragrant trees Shirking from the rage That tore the heavens free A vagrant Angel His with span to see The garden swell with terrors To banish man and Eve Another fall from grace Whiplashed from the gates Half-naked and insane Full-blooded, breasted Nerve ends tested To behests of pain A sombre lot to gain A storm slid in Borne by carnal winds The upper ether thinned And therein sat abominations Satan seated there Savouring the reek of desolation Their dank despair Moved His speech to leech the air "Behold the golden door To paradise is lost So praise Me as you raised your Lord And I shall thaw this gnawing frost" Another fall from grace Whiplashed from the gates Half-naked and insane And destined for a spiteful Fate Wherein evil sought the shamed As pawns in greater stakes Across this cosmic game To win the hand Of darkness and Set Her in her rightful place "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow thou shalt eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall bring it forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken: for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." [Genesis 3:17-19] At the throat of the human race With claws engorged and poised to rake With that the pact was sealed And as creation reeled Bewitched oration filled The hearts of all Who came to crawl Upon these earthen fields A sombre lot to till A wracked black acid song Spat from the massive throng Of Seraph knelt along The deep red welt to domination The deep red welt to domination 9. The Mordant Liquor Of Tears [Instrumental] 10. Presents From The Poison-Hearted Reigning at the feast of Phantasia Heightened pleasures were endeavoured to bow Before My coronation and vocal aspirations To rule this fool creation fallen 'neath me now I knew deep eyes Of a distant Christ Were scarred from afar under starry lustre Sighting my recitals on the rites of vice Perverting Virtue Enslaving grace Behind the glittering mask of pride Saving face finding thorns to pierce His side Desire, the fire Spread hell throughout my soul And higher the wire The more I sought control Straining from the leash in exultation Head to the wind to breathe with ravenous lungs The global scent of fornication A writhe of many vipers deciphering tongues I whispered schemes to dreamers then To pursue an Eden That screamed of me supreme again As my world bloomed So too the moon Through Adam to Seth, Enos, Cainan Mahalaleel and Jared blew Perverting virtue Enslaving grace Behind the slippery guise of lies Saving face making waves to drown their faith Messiahs, Pariahs Aeons reversed the two This higher, their spires The more cursed grew their roots And suffering... I swept cruel seas On the galley of the shadow of death A fist in the cunt of the spread horizon A kiss for the sun risen red once dines on The coast of Menses Discharged from celestial wombs A first degree murder of ravens Followed in fugue through the crack of doom The Goat of Mendes I set regime In the galley of the shadow of death... Angels in raiments As pure as coal Taking their payments In tortured mortal souls A bold direction The abyss edge But on cold reflection One they warmed to nonetheless As they preyed the paths of the righteous Through the myth of thistled orchard floors Bearing gifts of plenitude, for The apples of the Lord were rotten to the core Temptation, my ambassador Attila, Hesiod, Pharisees and Nero All begged of Me for more Down dark steps of history I waged war with a heaven I could not see... Beyond my wildest fantasies Throwing sixes over deadly sin I traded whose who played to win Skin for precious kin... And that that wormed within Staining the reams of revelation Etching ever-afters in accursed verse The limpid rags of resurrection From papal parapets were to dirt dispersed Desire, the flyers Spread hell throughout their souls And higher the fire The more I held control 11. Doberman Pharaoh To and fro, through freeze and thaws From zenith to nadir The universal tug of war Saw lines drawn in the sands appear Divisions of a promised land And Hell for those that dwelt Beneath a Pharaoh's granite hand Where death wed something else Millennia swam passed Since the covened Ark Ran aground on Ararat... But anew, tempered shadows grew Out of Midian, strewing fear Over verdant lawns, the resurgent storms Led a desert son to sear From the palace orchard I espied... (Where swooning trees and moonless beams vied For the painted eye of the royal bride Whose gliding curves were deified) ...beyond Her grace where love would die Wretched destiny arrive Back and forth the prophet came Riddled with a tongue of plagues That would render might Egypt lame If the rage of God stayed unassuaged... I listened with a heavy heart But unveiled to the threats This Hebrew in a jackal's mask Would dredge into effect Thenceforth the Nile reddened s if Set stretched His hand To beset the damned And bruised with flies The skies grew leadened But these miracles, feared Were all but reared By nature, whose law alone Stood that revered This hysteria passed, but still the mark Of Yahveh burned on in the dark One final time, on the steps to the shrine Of Thoth, I twined with fate "Let my people go" "Still my word is no" "Then Death shall be the deciding plague" Since the crimes divine I left behind I'd warred with every tribe that plied In holy vestament, but with time Bored sore of clawing what was mine I laid my bones and made my throne With a view to paradise Thenceforth the heavens deafened As if great beasts Were unleashed to feast on man And with carrion span Michael was weaponed To descend with scorn A dark reform Through Pi-Ramses Skinning mine and Her firstborn Thus suspiria passed each sacred mark Of Yahveh, bleeding in the dark With nauseous dawn, a cry, forlorn Unified from plazas deep The prophet's curse Far worse had worked To wrest the war in me from sleep Drowned in light, a downward light Bathed the snaking exodus Through the wilderness As the Aeons crept Impressed with fresh bloodlust 12. Babalon A.D. (So Glad For The Madness) I bled on a pivotal stretch Like a clockwork Christ Bears sore stigmata, bored And as I threw Job, I drove Myself to a martyred wretch To see if I drew pity Or pretty litanies from the Lord So the plot sickened With the coming of days Ill millennia thickened With the claret I sprayed And though they saw red I left a dirty white stain A splintered know in the grain On Eden's marital aid So glad for the madness I walked the walls naked to the moon In Sodom and Babylon And through rich whores and corridors Of the Vatican I led a sordid Borgia on I read the Urilia text So that mortals wormed As livebait for the dead And as I broke hope, I choked Another pope with manna peel Dictating to DeSade In the dark entrails of the Bastille And as he wrote, I smote A royal blow to the heads of France And in the sheen of guillotines I saw others, fallen, dance I was an incurable Necromantic old fool A phagadaena that crawled Drooling over the past A rabid wolf in shawl A razor's edge to the rule That the stars overall Were never destined to last So glad for the madness I furnaced dreams, a poet, for of sleep Turning sermons with the smell On Witchfinder fingers Where bad memories lingered Burning, as when Dante Was freed to map Hell I sired schemes and the means To catch sight of the seams And the vagaries inbetween... And midst the lips and the curls Of this cunt of a world In glimpses I would see A nymph with eyes for me Eyes of fire that set all life aflame Lights that surpassed art In sight, that no intense device of pain Could prise their secrets from my heart I knew not her name Though her kiss was the same Without a whisper of shame As either Virtue or Sin's And pressed to Her curve I felt my destiny swerve From damnation reserved To a permanent grin... So glad for the madness 13. A Scarlet Witch Lit The Season [Instrumental] 14. Mannequin Burning flesh, Dripping sweat, Using them all, like the paralyzing snake, Charmed and enchanted by the babylon whore. Led to other worlds By the girls she curled within I took their skins to see Her Be my mannequin Be my mannequin I cannot remember How it was that we first met Curve of moon and haunted shore The stars were not those Heaven sent Did we come together At masked palatial Balls In silks and flesh and leather Or did we come at all? I dreamt a midnight castle The eerie song of wolves And eyes that danced with fire As they have forever more Our rites of sin Have long fathered a hymn To burden Him Whom by slip of after whim At genesis Dressed Her like the wind In Autumn gowns That pinned Her down To be my mannequin Be my mannequin Always poised on winter But never would She break My lovecraft and black witch heart That pounded in Her wake We kissed on distant balconies A law unto Her own Thirteenth dark commandment Of figures pressed to stone Turning cream with fantasies That God alone would know We graced vomitorium With the sweet excess of Rome Flagrant in the past Our names were deeply carved On the tree of life in long dead languages Led to other worlds By the girls she curled within I took their skins to see Her Be my mannequin Be my mannequin I tongued the nuns at Louviers But not one word possessed Her divine right, an archetype For mortal Goddesses... 15. Thank God For The Suffering I, I still recall, the first fullmoon of May 'Neath whose rays we lay together And those bright nights on glassy waves When we would glide lightly away From the grain For wicked flights of pleasure Those visions fade Like ghosts to life's parade Though incisions once made her so vivid A scarlet whore With both heels in the door Of a heaven severed from me, insipid And midst the writhe of parapets Where angels sigh, lonely she sits Upon the lip Only a slip from whence I beg Her That I would wish Her kiss a chrysalis To break to make my fluttered heart amiss And in those frozen moments won From grief that creeps to wreathe the sun in drapes inwove with deathshead wing I thank God for the suffering Love would have conquered all But for the Rapture That ancient plan for my defeat Denied Faith skies that would have set Her free It seems again dreams wend to capture Once dancing in a spotlit waltz Through shadowed dimension Given to the rivers that bedizened Her eyes The world drifted by in lost momentum With no divine intervention Regardless that the author Of sin was me and I Lay chaste of hate in Faith's embrace As Mortals warred with more besides They warred with life itself And in those frozen moments won From grief that creeps to wreathe the sun In drapes inwove with deathshead wing I thank God for the suffering And I thank God for the suffering As still I burn For Her return I would make my peace with everything I, I still recall, the first fullmoon of May Consigned to flames like secret letters And midst the writhe of parapets Where angels sigh, lonely she sits Upon the lip Only a slip from whence I beg her That I would wish Her kiss a chrysalis To break to make my fluttered heart amiss And in those frozen moments won From grief that creeps to wreathe the sun In drapes inwove with deathshead wing I thank God for the suffering Love would have conquered all Were we not parted Her splintered loss rekindles rage The winter frost dwindles across my stage Lit up once more to score finales started Love would have conquered all Love would have conquered... Hate 16. The Smoke Of Her Burning Earth and sea cower from my screams As I climb into the skies Atop sins towered heaven high for me From whence I see no reason why I should not smite with vengeance And hurl thieves down from paradise For storms before were as nothing more Than a breeze next to this night I am Methuselah of the Tribulation The Moonchild come to harm A riot of stars shaken from their station The choking smoke of Jerusalem burning Six vices become wrath And though half-blind with ravening Like Phineus now I see The end declared from the beginning Love won through my defeat But now I fear I will never peer On Her radiance again I shall glimpse instead, the slurried red Of faces pressed to bloodstained panes Betrayed and played by God Who alone but He Scapegraced and goated me? Now I wish to piss on His parade Angels, clawed with burnished wings Still loyal, kiss the seal Bent on knees and harrowing Promise overkill Know that you shall die like whores And the cries of your writhings shall rise To please their Lord... So before the sword Side with me in slaughter I am Methuselah of the Tribulation The Moonchild come to harm The spoken horns of desolation Drink the pouring of my fury Those darkened waters spur The brink of war as my judge and jury And rapist executioner Our time is short, the horsemen ride A foul-breathed chora howls, besides Damnation and a day has passed This divine right to genocide Weld the gates to heaven shut The abyss leers in hissing ruts Unhilt the black grimoire of death Inscribe all names that God has left I lived the dream of nymph and men But now the nightmares come again Now the nightmares come again... 17. End Of Daze "And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep" Extra information from the booklet: THE SCARRED AND STARRY HOST Dani Filth - Scripture And Howls Paul - Unrepentant White Noise Martin Foul - Keys To Ransacked Eden David Pubis - Poisoned Heart Throb Adrian - Savage Repercussion ...all closed books on virtue Sarah Jezebel Deva - Lead angelic voice Narration - Dave McEwen Fellation - Madame Slam from Madame Slam's Bedtime stories Additional guitar by Martin Foul Over produced by Doug Cook and Cradle Of Filth Mixed by Rob Caggiano (for Scrap 60) and Cradle Of Filth Mix Engineered by Doug Cook and Steve Regina Engineered by Doug Cook - Assisted by Dan Turner Recorded at Parkgate Studios, Battle, with additional work undertaken at New Rising Studios, Peldon, late Summer and Autumn 2002 Orchestral passages arranged and mixed by Daniel Presley Performed by The Budapest Film Orchestra and Budapest Film Choir - Conducted By Lazslo Zadori Mastered by Ray Staff at Sony Studios, Whitfield Street, London Illustration & design by John Coulthart Album photography by Stu Williamson Models supplied by Sugar Babes/Samantha Bond Bitter Suits by Loz/J Design Management - Fay Woolven InPhase Management PO Box 756A, Surbiton KT6 6YZ, UK Livebait booking agent - Paul Bolton, Helter Skelter Legal Representative - Tim Northrop at Searles All tracks shitten by Cradle Of Filth 2002 Word plagues by Dani Filth