Cruelty and the Beast
Cradle of Filth
1998 ReleasedUpvote Your Favorite Album Today!
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Digging into Cruelty and the Beast - what's your favorite track or standout moment? 🤘
1
Once Upon Atrocity
01 : 43
2
Thirteen Autumns and a Widow
07 : 14
3
Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids
07 : 18
4
Beneath the Howling Stars
07 : 42
5
Venus in Fear
02 : 20
6
Desire in Violent Overture
04 : 16
7
The Twisted Nails of Faith
06 : 50
8
Bathory Aria: Benighted Like Usher / A Murder of Ravens in Fugue / Eyes That Witnessed Madness
11 : 02
9
Portrait of the Dead Countess
02 : 52
10
Lustmord and Wargasm (The Lick of Carnivorous Winds)
07 : 30
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Track Lyrics
Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids Lyrics
7 ContributorsCruelty Brought Thee Orchids LyricsHear me now
All crimes should be treasured
If they bring thee pleasure somehow
Maleficent in dusky rose
Gathered satin lapped Her breasts
Like blood upon the snow
A tourniquet of Topaz
Glistened at Her throat
Awakening, pulled from the tomb
Her spirit freed eclipsed the moon
She outshone as a fallen star
A regal ornament from a far flung nebular
Her likeness hung in the black gallery
Commanding unease
Demanding of Death to breathe
Midst the whirl and daylight fauna
Of society at court
Elizabeth bedazzled, Her presence sought applause
Though Her torchlit shadow
Thrown upon damp cellar walls
Greeted nothing but despair
From slaves Her nights enthralled
Thirteen Winter solstices had shown
Her path, that the dark
Had marked its dominion
Spaying the confessor
Whose caresses She'd known
As whipcord in the House of Dog
Her cold cunt meat on holy bone
Raped of faith, She now embraced
The narcissistic unrest frozen on the mirror's face
With this disdain, inside these veins
Highborn wanton that She was
She sought to keep what age would claim
Her soul was sold and for this toll
Reeking pyres ever smouldered
On the whims of one so in control
Elizabeth, mysterious
Cruelty brought thee orchids
From the bowels of the abyss
Once upon atrocity when midwitches stifled cries
And carved abortive runes in reddened wombs
Exhumed by scrying eyes
Madness came upon Her
Like an amourous lover's seed
Lifesblood splashed upon Her skin
In gouts torture unleashed
And to Her dead reflection
'Twas as if Her pallor gleamed
Like an Angel's warmed by candles
Where erotic stains had cleaved
So demons dragged this libertine
Lusts screaming for release
Upon the anointed flesh of maidens preened
As canvas for caprice
Exacting obeisance
Her gaze held a séance
Of spirits too trapped under glass to commune
A sleeter mistress than Luna
Whose threats to consume Her
Met with torments giving vent to Her swoon
Flat on Her back
Pack-prey for the reams
Of verses and curses
That haunted Her dreams
Midnightmare chimed
Thirteen in Her mind
A disciple of scars
Branded years hissed behind
Ridden split-thighed
By the father of lies
An ovation of wolves
Blushed the skies as they writhed
But Heaven is never forever
She came, a spent storm
From the clouds
Leaving serpents in office
Inside every gate
To lick righteous holes
Blinding Lords to the fate
Of virgins forced naked
To defile on rent knees
Hacked and racked backwards
Menses choking their pleas
More. Whore. More
Twitching make me wet with thee
Carcass rub me raw
And to Her dead reflection
'Twas as if Her pallor gleamed
Like an Angel's warmed by candles
Where erotic stains had cleaved
Demons dragged this libertine
Lusts screaming for release
Upon the anointed flesh of maidens preened
As canvas for caprice
Cruelty and the beast
Cruelty and the beast
Cruelty and the beast
EEEGAAAAAAHHH!
Raped of faith, She now embraced
The narcissistic unrest frozen on the mirror's face
With this disdain, inside these veins
Highborn wanton that she was
She sought to keep what age would claim
Her soul was sold and for this toll
Pyres ever smouldered
Whims of one so in control
Elizabeth, mysterious
Cruelty brought thee orchids
From the bowels of thee a-
From the bowels of thee a-byss!
Beneath the Howling Stars Lyrics
12 ContributorsBeneath the Howling Stars LyricsMidwinter wrongs the rites of Spring
Her spinal chill rakes the earth
Whilst pensive souls at zero sing
Woebetidings of rebirth
Under cold stares of Mars maligned
Near-suicides cross their hearts
And unborns writhe in tepid brine
For something wicked this way starts
Beneath the howling stars
Elizabeth, paragon of vice
Watches the sun set pyres alight
As Bane and Tyranny, her dobermans sleep
Like spellbound paramours at Her feet
A chatter of bells without
Raise hellhounds, teeth on edge
From sleighs hastened through snow lit red
Guests espied from the garret ledge
Great gloomy mirror tell her face
She will outblind them all
That heavenly bodies would fall from grace
To possess such a lustrous pall
For beauty is always cruel...
For beauty is always...
(Let destiny in chains commence...
Damnation under Gods seeking recompense
Enslaving to the whims of this mistress)
As the dance ensued
Elizabeth's mood
Tempered by the craft of a vitreous moon
In slick black iciness it grew
To consume
The wench her tower tombed
Tending to her costume
Bore the brunt of the storm
When the needle askewed
She has her dogs maul the bitch's wrists through
Restored to jaded bliss
This evisceratrix
Descended to the ball
With painted blood upon Her lips
Passing like a comet so white
As to eclipse
The waltz wound down, transfixed
Devoid of all breath in the air
Even death paled to compare
To the taint of her splendour
So rare and engendered
'Pon the awed throng gathered
There...
Beneath the howling stars
She danced so macabre
Men entranced divined from her gait
That this angel stepped from a pedestal
Had won remission from fate
By alighting to darker spheres
Delighting in held sway
For she was not unlike the Goddess
To whom the wolves bayed
Whilst envy glanced daggers
From court maidens, arboured
Who whispered in sects
Of suspicions abroad
That Elizabeth bewitched
See how even now the whore casts
Her spells upon the Black Count
Whom her reddened lips hold fast
Tongue unto tongue
Swept on tides without care
For the harpies who rallied
Their maledict glares
A halo of ravens tousled her hair
Chandeliers a tiara
For passions ensnared
Phantasies sexed
When their eyes, moonstruck met
Their friction wore away
Through the sea of foreplay
Lovers at first bite
She an Eve tempted to lay
Gasping at rafters
Flesh pressed in ballet
But caprice, honours leashed
She absconded the feast
To prowl wonderland
Beasts in hand from the eep
Of Feudal dilemma
Well mantled in furs
Through cullis to watch
Dogstars howl at the earth
On this violent night
Unholy night
Winds lashed their limbs together
As the ether vent its wintry spite
She wished his kiss on her frozen landscapes
To excite the bleak advance
From castle bowers
Wherein small hours
The Devil never came by chance
A lone charm tied to her inner thigh
Sent lusts nova as hooves trod
Cobbled streets where lowlives fleet
Were flung to a wayward God
Midwinter wrongs the rites of Spring
Her spinal chill rakes the earth
Whilst pensive souls at zero sing
Woebetidings of rebirth
Under cold stares of Mars maligned
Near-suicides cross their hearts
And unborns writhe in tepid brine
For something wicked this way starts
Beneath the howling stars
Pounding upon the pauper ridge
Earshot of a hunched beldame
Elizabeth teased, would he dare to please
Such elderly loins enflamed?
To this he feigned a grim disdain
Playing to her slayful eye
But the hag replied...
This girl that chides
Will soon be as plagued with age as I
Her consort laughed a plume of icy breath
For Elizabeth's grace could raise
A flag of truce in burning heaven
Or the dead from early graves
Yet still she seethed
This proud Snow Queen
Embittered with the cursed retort
And because he sought her loves onslaught
He gutted the crone for sport
Soon in full moon fever they were wed
Lycanthropic in the conjugal bed
Littered with aphrodisiacs
To tease dynastic union
And beget them further maniacs
Elizabeth
Free reigned, now a Countess
Outwielded and outwore
Her title like a favoured dress
Whilst her errant Lord
Whose seasons savoured war
Stormed black to fell the infidel
Her embers, tempered, roared
Desire in Violent Overture Lyrics
7 ContributorsDesire in Violent Overture LyricsNights came trailing ghost concertos
Heartstrings a score of skeletal reaper bows
Playing torture chamber music allegretto
Conducting over throes trashed to crescendo
Skinless the dark shall scream
Hoarse her symphonies
Deathmashed as the moon
That had lifted her dreams
And frowned on the winding steps down
To where the vulgar strayed
Taunting sick her tender prey
She glided in her bridal gown
How sleep the pure
Desire in violent overture
An emanation of phantom madness
The Countess beheld in shroud
By girls bereft of future vows
Soon to wed in white the frosted ground
Burning like a brand on the countenance of God
A yearning took her hand to his Seraphim, bound
Deep red hissed the cat whips
On the whim of her ill-will
Whilst she entranced, nonchalant, abliss
Flayed further songs of overkill
How weep the pure
Desire in violent overture
Oh, desire in violent overture
In a crescent-whime cellar of crushed roses
Pooled blood and broken dolls
A torchlit shadow theatre souled
With the echoed cries of lives she stole
Killing time
She struck the hours dead
In her control
Thus menopaused
Her clock of hacked out cunts
Began to toll
Thirteen chimes of ancient strain
I conjure forth with dirge
That fills the void with timbred pain
To fulfill my sexual urge
Frights came wailing from the dark side
Haunting lipless mouths a fugue of arcane diatribes
Velvet, their voices coffined her in slumber
Bespattered and appeased
As pregnant skies outside bore thunder
How sleep the pure
Desire in violent overture
Desire in violent
As when high winds
Attune whipped trees
Her savage nature pitched
Would once again conduct the pleas
Of those she loved to agonies
As if it were
The first time every night
That she carved her seal
In the flesh of life