British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH will enter the studio on November 24 to begin recording their new album, tentatively titled "Hammer Of The Witches", for an early 2015 release. During a recent interview with the "Bleedin' Loud" podcast, CRADLE OF FILTH vocalist Dani "Filth" Davey confirmed the band's split with guitarist Paul Allender and spoke about the group's plans for the new CD. "Paul Allender has left [CRADLE OF FILTH] which not everybody is aware of," Dani said. "We weren't planning on it, because it was the kind of thing that has been, kind of, brewing for the last year or so. Not so much on a personal level, but [him] living in America [in Minnesota] and then him doing his side project [WHITE EMPRESS] and getting kind of lost in that. I know I've got [my own side projects] DEVILMENT and, dare I say, TEMPLE OF THE BLACK MOON, but it never really came between CRADLE; I always found time to do it. For example, the DEVILMENT album, it'll come out, literally, the mirror's image of when the CRADLE [album] will come out [the DEVILMENT album will come out] about autumn, and CRADLE's next album will come out spring next year. So the DEVILMENT and [CRADLE] won't meet anytime soon, so that's okay." Asked about whether CRADLE OF FILTH has found a replacement guitarist for Allender, Filth said: "Well, that's the thing. We only really had one guitarist for the last two albums; Paul had a very strong opinion about doing that, and we're a two-guitar band. So that may be one of the things that kind of opened the fissure a bit." He continued: "We were doing this [European] tour with BEHEMOTH [earlier in the year] and [Paul] had some personal issues and he couldn't do it, so we brought a Czech guy called Ashok [of Czech groups ROOT and INNER FEAR] in, who's friends with Martin ['Marthus' Skaroupka], the [CRADLE OF FILTH] drummer, and then an English guy, Richard Shaw [of English acts EMPEROR CHUNG and NG26], who lives in Derbyshire, and we thought, 'Well, that's cool, 'cause he's an English guy.' And it was such a great tour and everybody got on so well, and these two other guys knew the band inside out, so when we started writing, which we were doing on the road not out of necessity, but just 'cause we could it just all came together, and it was, like, 'Wow! This is great.'
Everybody was, like, really, 'Yes! That was such a great tour.' [It was] a bit short it was only three weeks long so when we came back [home], I was, like, 'Wow, we should usually just be halfway through the tour by this point.' So being that invigorated, everybody just started writing, which has brought the album forward by a whole year. Which will please some, and annoy others." As of late June, CRADLE OF FILTH's new lineup had "about eight [new] tracks" in various states of completion for the follow-up to 2012's "The Manticore And Other Horrors", and "it's sounding awesome," according to Dani. He previously said some of the new material is comparable to that of 'Dusk... And Her Embrace' [1996], 'Cruelty And The Beast' [1998] and 'Midian' [2000], albeit with a fresher sound." He added: "I can't define it exactly, as it incorporates a wide variety of styles and dark emotions as one would come to expect from a CRADLE record. One thing is certain, though: this next release is going to be pushing the boundaries of what the band can achieve, and with forthcoming live shows peppering the writing process, I know this album is going to be fuelled by 101% metal fury!" CRADLE OF FILTH's tenth studio album, "The Manticore And Other Horrors", sold 4,500 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 96 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band's previous full-length effort, "Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa", opened with 5,800 units in November 2010 to land at No. 99.
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