Easter Sunday, 2003 and whilst the rest of the country chomped through mountains of chocolate eggs and spoon fed their children guilt trips the rest of us ventured out in our best black finery to witness, as was expected, a grave robbing, heaven crunching show from the b*stards of Black Metal 'Cradle of Filth'.

However, whilst the usual dry ice and blood curdling screams prevailed the boys in black were just off their game tonight with little to no response from a usually vehement crowd. 'We played a gig in France last night', Dani Filth announced, 'And even they were f*cking louder than you'..that just about summed up the night. Old favourites such as 'Cthulhu Dawn' and 'Dusk And Her Embrace' were wheeled out but with new band members and little audience participation things just weren't gelling for the Kings of Darkness tonight. Only Sarah Jezebel Diva raised the bar with her beautiful falsetto voice curling around Dani's unique vocal style like barbed wire kisses and wonderfully innovative and offensive t-shirts for sale, as is the COF boy's trademark. New tracks from the album sounded great if a little disjointed seemingly more practice will be required before they set off on their first USA Ozzfest this year.

I love the new album and 'Babylon AD' is the best COF song I have ever heard hence I came with much enthusiasm for the evening but was left feeling a little unsatisfied. I have seen COF live before and they kicked ass so lets not give up yet, even the undead are allowed an off night now and again!

Copyright 2003, BallBuster, The Official Int'l Underground Hard Music Report