This week I bring, again, Liv Kristine, but collaborating with a classic metal band, Cradle of Filth.
The Band
Cradle of Filth is an English metal band, formed in 1991. They were black metal at the beginning, but have evolved more into symphonic, gothic metal throughout the years. The lyrics tend towards gothic literature and poetry, and the aesthetics mix horror films and dark imagery.
The Singer
Liv Kristine Espenæs is a Norwegian singer. She is known for being the singer of various metal bands like Theatre of Tragedy, Leaves’ Eyes, and recently with Midnattsol (with her sister Carmen Elise Espenæs). Besides, she has recorded many solo albums and has collaborated with many other bands, just like in this case, with Cradle of Filth.
The Album
Cradle of Filth released their sixth studio album, Nymphetamine on September 28th, 2004.
Band Members
- Dani Filth – vocals
- Paul Allender – guitars
- James McIlroy – guitars
- Martin Powell – keyboards, additional guitars, choral arrangements
- Dave Pybus – bass
- Adrian Erlandsson – drums
The Song
This track is a gothic metal anthem written by Dani Filth.
The song has 2 versions. The shorter one, Nymphetamine Fix, it’s the one that has the video. That video has 78 million views, one of the most successful videos of Roadrunner Records, and the original longer version is Nymphetamine Overdose.
Nymphetamine (Fix) is the middle part of the song. The title suggests a combination of the term “nymphet” and the drug “amphetamine”, so it refers to this girl that he’s addicted to, kind of like a drug.
The sound is very harmonic and epic. It begins with keyboards, that give the song its symphonic feel. The lead guitar provides it with a beautiful melody. And the perfect combination of the sweet voice of Liv with Dani‘s growls and whispers, made the song quite mainstream, more appealing to a broader audience, instead of their typical catalog of music.
I love some of their music, even though I’m not much into black metal, in general.
The lyrics are so poetic. Dani Filth writes beautifully, especially in love songs. He’s like a black metal Edgar Allan Poe.
The video is in black and white. Gothic esthetic, with an atmosphere that is beautiful and scary, at the same time.
Lyrics
Nymphetamine (Fix)
Lead to the river
Midsummer, I waved
A ‘V’ of black swans
On with hope to the grave
All through Red September
With skies fire-paved
I begged you appear
Like a thorn for the holy ones
Cold was my soul
Untold was the pain
I faced when you left me
A rose in the rain
So I swore to thy razor
That never, enchained
Would your dark nails of faith
Be pushed through my veins again
Bared on your tomb
I am a prayer for your loneliness
And would you ever soon
Come above unto me?
For once upon a time
From the binds of your lowliness
I could always find
The right slot for your sacred key
Six feet deep is the incision
In my heart, that barless prison
Discolours all with tunnel vision
Sunsetter
Nymphetamine
Sick and weak from my condition
This lust, a vampyric addiction
To her alone in full submission
None better
Nymphetamine
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
Nymphetamine girl
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
My nymphetamine girl
Wracked with your charm
I am circled like prey
Back in the forest
Where whispers persuade
More sugar trails
More white lady laid
Than pillars of salt
(Keeping Sodom at night at bay)
Fold to my arms
Hold their mesmeric sway
And dance out to the moon
As we did in those golden days
Christening stars
I remember the way
We were needle and spoon
Mislaid in the burning hay
Bared on your tomb
I am a prayer for your loneliness
And would you ever soon
Come above unto me?
For once upon a time
From the binds of your holiness
I could always find
The right slot for your sacred key
Six feet deep is the incision
In my heart, that barless prison
Discolours all with tunnel vision
Sunsetter
Nymphetamine
Sick and weak from my condition
This lust, a vampyric addiction
To her alone in full submission
None better
Nymphetamine
Sunsetter
Nymphetamine
None better
Nymphetamine
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
Nymphetamine girl
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
My nymphetamine girl
Lyrics
Nymphetamine (Overdose)
Evanescent like the scent of decay
I was fading from the race
When in despair, my darkest days
Ran amok and forged her face
From the fairest of handmaidens to
A slick perverted wraith
Nymphetamine
Heaving midst narcissus
On a maledict blanket of stars
She was all three wishes
Sex, sex, sex
A lover hung on her death row
I was hooked on her disease
Highly strung like Cupid’s bow
Whose arrows hungered meat
And the blinding flare of passion
In the shade of narrow streets
Where their poison never rationed
All the tips they left in me
Two tracks
Bric-a-brac
Something passed between us
Like a bad crack
Upward-lit
I’d met another kind
Of rat
In fact
With every Rome inside me
Licked and ransacked
She haunted at the corners of my mind
In black
Cataracts
Wouldn’t whitewash away
Her filthy smoke stack
She burnt me like a furnace
For my future suicide
Lead to the river
Midsummer, I waved
A ‘V’ of black swans
On with hope to the grave
All through Red September
With skies fire-paved
I begged you appear
Like a thorn for the holy ones
Cold was my soul
Untold was the pain
I faced when you left me
A rose in the rain
So I swore to thy razor
That never, enchained
Would your dark nails of faith
Be pushed through my veins again
Bared on your tomb
I’m a prayer for your loneliness
And would you ever soon
Come above unto me?
For once upon a time
From the binds of your lowliness
I could always find
The right slot for your sacred key
Six feet deep is the incision
In my heart, that barless prison
Discolours all with tunnel vision
Sunsetter
Nymphetamine
Sick and weak from my condition
This lust, a vampyric addiction
To her alone in full submission
None better
Nymphetamine
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
Nymphetamine girl
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
My nymphetamine girl
Wracked with your charm
I am circled like prey
Back in the forest
Where whispers persuade
More sugar trails
More white lady laid
Than pillars of salt
Fold to my arms
Hold their mesmeric sway
And dance her to the moon
As we did in those golden days
Christening stars
I remember the way
We were needle and spoon
Mislaid in the burning hay
Bared on your tomb
I’m a prayer for your loneliness
And would you ever soon
Come above unto me?
For once upon a time
From the binds of your holiness
I could always find
The right slot for your sacred key
Six feet deep is the incision
In my heart, that barless prison
Discolours all with tunnel vision
Sunsetter
Nymphetamine
Sick and weak from my condition
This lust, a vampyric addiction
To her alone in full submission
None better
Nymphetamine
Sunsetter
Nymphetamine (Nymphetamine)
None better
Nymphetamine
Two tracks
Bric-a-brac
Something passed between us
Like a bad crack
Upward-lit
I’d met another kind
Of rat
In fact
With every Rome inside me
Licked and ransacked
She haunted at the corners of my mind
In black
Cataracts
Wouldn’t whitewash away
Her filthy smoke stack
She burnt me like a furnace
For my future suicide