Cradle of Filth The Manticore and Other Horrors 1. The Unveiling of O instrumental 2. The Abhorrent I sing desolation On the breath of centuries Bringing annihilation Slaughter courses through my enemies I was not always so cold Once upon a crime in times of favour I had lived a God amongst the bold Like a true poetic saviour But my people were dissolved By the flames of righteous strangers My name blackened ten thousandfold Death grew to know me... As the abhorrent Stricken from the light As dividing curses poured I was hiding in the thickening mire Biding for my war I'm climbing up the years to get you From a dark abyssic scheme Lovecraftian, part-Martian To the beast I used to be My laureates of gold are sold Horns spear the reddened sea And by my transformed hand Be sure The Heavens hear your final screams Tonight this world is burning To a fulsome serenade Arch nemesis, I'm the genesis Of a raging plague about to break Blue eyes rolled headlong to black When the darkness drew me to her caresses I was not always so cold Once upon a crime in times of old I had lived a God amongst the folds Of creeping epic failure But my people were dissolved By the flames of righteous strangers My name blackened and deeds annulled They grew to know me... As the abhorrent I'm a cemetery and a garden Ripe with near-putrefied life A phallus beginning to harden On the philosophy of a prurient knife I hear the dead begin to cry "Hostis Humanis Generis" My favourite leaden lullaby On sacred eyes I've asked for sacrifice Mere moments of atonement For your despise A stern believer That the great deceiver Is your precious God Whose preachers saw me demonised Now, the sun it sets On your nascent best of days Time to rise Gorgon, Calibos and Cain Titans unrepentant Lord Lucifer insane "If I am the Devil I shall honour my spiteful name" Tonight this world is burning To a fulsome serenade Arch nemesis, the best of this Destructive wickedness is on its way 3. For Your Vulgar Delectation Welcome with a stench of misadventure Libertine and sibling things a grim Slither forth through the gateway's hissing denture The moon, one up on the chateau battlements Gilds this torchlit drive to Shangri-la This solstice calls like the piper to rodentia Come join this hive of masqueraders This eve is pure and pagan Its teeth are in the past Dark royalties of ancient caste Feast in splendour For your vulgar delectation Decreed That hunger shall be sated by the dawn In marble ballrooms of delight The erotic and the wicked dance alike Virgin cunts aquiver at this foreplay for the spiteful The cellars smelt abrim With cracked wine and racked women Are spiced for even Marquis appetites Screams an aphrodisiac For the blackest ever nightfall Lords, heed the call Vast boudoirs here Are mastered by the minatory Walls plastered with the base relief Of baser glories Ma Cherie Debauchery Deflower of my life untie their bonds And push these fantasies To ever greater stories For your vulgar delectation Inhibit nothing, run free Loose sore cauteries before me Ripped, prolific scars Are titbits on which to feed The heathen hour strikes Wrong the rites, beasts ravage for your soul As lovely entrapment snaps her fingers Hell comes crawling This eve is pure and pagan Its teeth are in the past Let the cream of sinners learn at last For your vulgar delectation Decreed That hunger shall be sated by the dawn Dawn... burning, aghast With the judgment that we spend upon the evil We feed eternal hungriness Exceeding vile deeds that were freed in this cathedral For your vulgar delectation Decreed That horrors shall be waited on the ones Who crave sin's innovations 4. Illicitus Forlornucopia, the wealth of misery And favoured haunts of sorrow hold no lure Deep swathes of gloom That once cocooned me in dark livery Now clothe me in suits ill-borrowed from the pure Alas it's true The beast you knew Found breath anew In the taut heartstrings of love's assassin She was a huntress And an alabaster bride A Venus not averse to taking sides And in all my centuries Bar Carmilla in cerise Never had I fallen save for foolish pride As we walked, our affrighted lanterns Fed the lengthy shadows with their tallow lullabies The fragrant night air chilled by sighted phantoms Clouds drew cobweb threads across a sallow moonrise Illicitus So capricious Superstitious to the point of philistine The glue of secrecy grew paper thin Her beauty so delicious In the realm of the divine The cross about her throat gave up to sin In expectation Her lips to find The crates were blazing in my stone cold cellars That traitor love Once its spell ran headlong through my veins Now I felt it roar again Like an urge for murder ...Her kiss The paradigm of bliss Hot whispers on the wind In swanlike curves I graced salvation Amidst both worlds I promised her Eternity would be beautiful Yet, on the cusp I still not truly dared Her eyes plied hard a burning will Beseeching on her knees Like Salome unfulfilled I hung between two thieves Guilt and spilt desire Until that flame became a fire All consuming With strength renewed I turned again Death all lit up my perfect victim And she grew The scourge of men They hissed her name in perverted dictum Now we walk, our cavorting auras Feed the lengthy shadows with their sullen lullabies The fragrant night air filled with haunting chorus Clouds draw cobweb threads across a bloodied moonrise Illictius Illicit Us 5. Manticore Write a story, any story But let it have dragons... Oh Gods of war In the jungle corridor I feel your haughty presence feasting the Manticore She stalks the shadows, burning The smoke is thick and reeks of blood Her hunger an eternal yearning Tantric, necromantic, a wank fantasy of faith She religiously feeds a feverous all man-eater In the trees I see her eyes Like slithering she of snakes Monstrous this chimera In her beautiful anger Screaming from the pulpit Damnation's oratory She is the whispering poison dart And the breath of armageddon all around The embodiment of evil in a body full of raptures Anthropophagous Manticora Press the silent violin of frisson over horror In my forced hand Sphinx will sing her song and coloured in lullabies Death endorsed invades our lands Gigantic, pyromantic A beast of naked flame Panting blackened masses from her opulent Godhead Ill-barbed are those tongues Spread wings eclipse her frame And in her deep crevasses Kundalini vents unfed In darkness Her fastness threshed with fleshing teeth She comes to masticate you whole She is the bane of mothers Grand leveller of Maa Kali's Mardi Gras What man would damn the world to summon her? Be still Pray silence lest she stoops to conquer The perverse acid queen Ten thousand pillars in her heart Uphold and cracked palace of frozen killers And the mirror in her soul Polished black for scrying nightmares Bubbles with a lust that yearns to burn again Razor backed, she attacks Empire's battle cat A creature of the white devil's rule Mythical and mystical Provinces will recall the swarm Of refugees from her pall Mimicking victims With a voice of the choicest deadpanned in pain Awful claws hold rapport with the skins of mankind She is the whispering poison dart And the breath of armageddon all around The embodiment of evil in a valley full of raptors A lick of fire on her lips As silent as a will-o'-wisp She comes amongst you all, tigressive Blazing in her pride Hellraising horrors from the dark-side... Manticore 6. Frost on Her Pillow Facedown I sprawl in the forest's cathedral Where she lies in thrall To a slippery coffin I first saw her grin in this graven lair My heart starting to canter Snow white skin and raven hair Lips full red as a blood decanter But hatred hunted there In tyranny's mirror Magickal rites Turned with jealousy On a young reflection Back then Spring's breeze sweetened the night Now the evenings are longing Shadows delight And frost on her pillow Glitters by the moonlight Months saw me lost to her elegant, decadent ways This past midnight cinderella With a smile like the winter sun On a misty day And star-grazing eyes raising cappellas But poison stunted there Seven trees weaving Arbour on nights Spent in ecstasy 'Neath their woodland awning She fell foul to witchcraft's designs A weeping willow Wicked willed to sleep There's frost on her pillow At the cost of mourning Now the lands fall grey, Devils revel and obey A cruel beauty drifted from a dark novella The Queen of hearts tarred By the cards she's swift to play In turrets over all, where angels smell her ways Our fairytale is over My love lies dead The kingdom writhes in a bed of dementia Misadventure strides instead A sore, wilde picture like Dorian Gray Pressed against the glass in pain One final graven kiss to say "My love I will avenge" Those fleeting hours flowers bloomed Beneath the tree-entangled moon Why did you have to leave so soon My illuminary friend? But hatred hunted there In tyranny's mirror Justified spite Turned armageddon On a stunned reflection Back then Hell's freeze strangled the night Summer is coming New flames ignite And frost on her pillow Is lost to morning light 7. Huge Onyx Wings Behind Despair Bloated with disease A psychophantic grease that clings Like a shroud thrown over me A coat of gloden fleas And by their gleam The shadows grow to me This soul is sick with wicked exploration My vulgar habits stitched the rabbit hole A welcome mat for infestation Fettered from the get go Listen to me now For the road to glory goads you Thistles on the path Always cast by the one who knows you From the dark We are less than worms and vermin Black clouds low and roll Shipwrecked in my psyche By siren fantasies Serpents Curl about my goals Hissing through the mirror As they slither over me Now... I pray you see the light Before huge onyx wings behind despair arise They splay night skies with desolation And the Devil never lets go Fate caught me In flagrante delicto Shame taught me Hells self-obsessive fresco Ruled by horrors Grue, no butterfly become Cocooned in utter guilt The gutters silt has overrun My rue transcendence Sheol builds Golem And this offence to nature Is hunting independence The more I wallow in grief The more fatalist I fall To this engorging beast The greatest traitor of them all Bloated with disease A psychopathic grease that clings Like a shroud thrown over me A coat of golden fleas And by their gleam The shadows grow to be This soul is sick with wicked exploration My vulgar habits stitched the rabbit hole A welcome mat for infestation Listen to them laugh For the roads to glory goad you Thistles on the path Always cast by the one who knows you From within the mirror 8. Pallid Reflection Here forms a knotted sorrow The vivid grasp of fading faces Storm clouds plot to follow... I wander despondent, a curse on the grave Her hair in my locket, a lock of nightshade And there in my pocket, I nurse the charade Her ring is awaiting her back I watch her from shadows, pariah by day I sleep in dark belfries and cellars away From the ungiving living, their neurotic plague Has turned her, as I to the black "Faster beats the drum of dark arcanum" Marie I turned a deaf ear to heaven When the evil eye accompanied me You'll see I am no further needed in the mirror By my pallid reflection I thrust so perversely, the worst is this crave For sweet scarlet blood from a harlot parade Of dutiful victims I beautifully take With delicious malicious intent A gift from a goddess who toyed with her game The price of my night's infidelity paid At the altar of her never faltering blade Of infernal nocturnal descent "Faster beats the heart of dark arcanum" So I walk the moonlit quarters Like a driven beast of prey A catalyst for madness, slaughter Given the leash to play I'm detritus to my chosen A ghost for all her days Thus is Cocytus frozen From those loved and left betrayed Dream-dappled streams of sunshine Dread fogs shall dissipate As red skies descend on graveyard floors Where the dead exhilarate "My heart is gone Taken by a nightmare bourgeois creature Now you belong To your sick womenagerie..." N, n, no, no I'm not the reason for this bleeding N, n, no, no My past is fast leaving me Aghast in purgatory Marie I turned a deaf ear to heaven When the evil eye accompanied me You'll see I am no longer greeted in the mirror By my pallid reflection So I stalk the moonlit quarters Like a driven beast of prey A catalyst for madness, slaughter Given the season I taste the true nature Of this secret caste This devil undone Soars free at last... 9. Siding with the Titans Where nature's russet beauty grew the roses of Utopia The stench of vented corpses floats abroad These killing fields will yield to new horizons so Cyclopean With the advent of our resurrected Lords Siding with the Titans Cast into the ancient dark of Tartarus Below the underworld These ancient bastards bore their agonies Or, locked in slumbrous nightmares Twixt the spheres or 'neath the seas The slept until the righting of the cosmos set them free They slept until the blighting of the night sky Let them loose on you and me Welcome this return Titanomachian and Vatican-hearsed The mass enslavement of a passive Universe In nary a day the earth was burning Leviathans and Krakens Colossal horrors rising forth From oceans spewing Tsunamis Like heralds of malevolence Dispensing holocaust The grandiose ballet Of death and ravaged flesh The span of Mankind shut down In one massive shattered fucking breath A slice of moon thrust a fatal glow On their cold relentless freedom From core to crust and conquered pole to pole Reconfiguring for a fecund second Eden I had glimpsed this Hell before This twisted fungoid Boschian garden of insanity An infested Nevermore Rife with delights to annihilate humanity Gods fell upon us insects with world-devouring maws When nature's emptry bounty died, I dreamt this tragic sight We precognitioners just tuned the signal to you all Amplified, the vision fried, pulsing magnetic stars were right Vast gates drew open What slathered forth began the fall Siding with the Titans Our last mistakes to which awake Past masters, mad and cruel Shalt witness the explicitness of their rule But I shall be rewarded And take my place amidst the black For what else is there left to do save usher these monsters back? I welcome this return I welcome this return Mountains of perversion, Elder versions and worse The mass enslavement of a passive Universe In nary a day temples were turning On judgment day I'm siding with the Titans... 10. Succumb to This Succumb to this slicker genesis The serpentine wish of a decandent stranger This fixed insistence From a twisted out-of-mind He is scum to his kind Slumming with the cast Of his vast Imaginarium Darkness come refined Succumb to this wicked nemesis The paralysis of hissing imminent danger His kiss persistent, lips whisper his design Numb with bliss, licked of menaces This Philistine itch caught pissing in the manger Is never distant from unresistant sides Succumb to this He will promise the earth Laughing with the grasp Of all past denominations A master of rebirth "Flee demon flee I cast thee out with the power invested Please leave me be My heart is a biblical wreck" Cease and just see I rule this wide-eyed world unmolested Increasing fantasies With a wave of my hand And high tides of turning freed From the dizzying breeze of Quarantania Beauty swoons in caresses of nature Pleasures of the rooted flesh await her The taste of heaven for endeavouring Man To a grater measure of temptation's folly Lo! The splendour of the throne The feasting spread of best harvests Picked clean off the bone The shining kingdoms Blent against red sunset skies And everywhere the scent of better wonders Set desires to fiery rise "Tonight All the stars burning bright are but a canopy for me A cinderella story, stellar jealousies are rife For my Prince holds a divine right Enlightened with the glorious" Blind faith falls for the First Seduction Induction into halls of shame With classic joys and fresh allures Life leads fantastic overtures "Indulge, only the coy abjure" This orgiastic ride Sigh! His smile's just a laceration With a fascination for the massing dark side And he means war... Succumb to this wicked nemesis The paralysis of hissing imminent danger His kiss persistent, lips whisper his design Numb with bliss, licked of menaces This Philistine itch caught pissing in the manger Is never distant from his soul-corrupted prize He will show miracles Building on the fast Iconoclastic innovations Growing empirical Succumb to this 11. Sinfonia instrumental