The Principle of Evil Made Flesh is the debut studio album by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth. It was released on 24 February 1994 through Cacophonous Records, following three demos released between 1991 and 1993. The album's sound is significantly more raw than on subsequent releases, and frontman Dani Filth's vocals differ from his later style and technique. The album is a then-unusual hybrid of gothic metal and black metal.
Lyrical content
Despite backing vocalist Andrea Meyer styling herself as the band's "Satanic advisor" and Paul Ryan being credited in the sleeve notes for "Satanic war noise", the lyrics make scant mention of Satan or Satanism. Specific references only appear on the intro track "Darkness Our Bride" (the chant "Agios o Satanas"), and indirectly on the track "Of Mist and Midnight Skies" (a line about "Satanic decree"). The lyrics do express anti-religious sentiments in tracks such as "The Forest Whispers My Name" and "A Crescendo of Passion Bleeding".
The album contains many mythological and occult references, encompassing Set, the Valkyrie, Hecate, Baphomet, Artemis, Bastet, Astarte, Ishtar, Khem, Al-Uzza, Eve, Aleister Crowley, Diana and Lilith. The sleeve quotes Hegel, Swinburne and Hitler ("Weltmacht oder Niedergang"). Dani Filth explained the album's overwhelmingly female pantheon in The Gospel of Filth:
<blockquote>The personification of evil as a woman comes down to a really simple equation with me. If you're going to write very intimately about a character, I'd rather be intimate with a woman... I'd rather worship a female entity than a male one. If God's representative on Earth was male, it seems logical to me that the opposite would be female, especially with the traditional symbolic association between femininity and the moon. In a sense, we venerate woman as the author of original sin, and therefore, the reason for man straying from God...</blockquote>
Sixteen years on from Principle, Lilith reappeared as the central character of Cradle of Filth's 2010 concept album Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa.
Cover art
The cover is a stock image from Nigel Wingrove's Redemption portfolio.
Critical reception
AllMusic wrote, "Principle, in retrospect, doesn't quite live up to the quality control exhibited on later records, the album leaving plenty of room for the group to grow into its studded S&M gear. Too often, Dani's vocals are reduced to generic death-puking or heavy-handed, Tom Warrior-style monotone narration, and the spiky guitar riffs of the title track and 'A Crescendo of Passion Bleeding' are relatively primitive by CoF standards."
Cradle of Filth
- Dani Filth – lead vocals
- Paul Allender – guitars
- Paul Ryan – guitars
- Robin Graves – bass
- Benjamin Ryan – keyboards
- Nick Barker – drums
Additional musicians
- Frater Nihil – vocals and lyrics on "Imperium Tenebrarum"
- Darren White (Anathema) – additional vocals on "A Dream of Wolves in the Snow"
- Soror Proselenos – cello
- Andrea Meyer – female vocals
Production
- Mags – producer, mixing
- Nilesh – mastering
- Chris Bell – photography
- Paul Harries – photography
- Mark – photography
- Nigel Wingrove – art direction