Cradle of Filth’s “Malignant Perfection”

Heavy Song of the Week is a feature on Heavy Consequence breaking down the top metal, punk, and hard rock tracks you need to hear every Friday. This week, No. 1 goes to Cradle of Filth’s one-off single “Malignant Perfection.”

Halloween really is the perfect time for new Cradle of Filth. The UK band’s orchestral black metal is rife with spooky overtures and gothic atmospherics, as epitomized on the group’s new Halloween-themed song “Malignant Perfection.”

Described by frontman Dani Filth as a “horrific homage to All Hallows Eve,” the song has a regal and festive energy with prominent bouncing keyboard lines that overtake the guitars in the mix. Atop that, Dani sounds as if he’s narrating the lyrics through his raspy howl, almost like a cabaret singer. The whole production is a seductive concoction, akin to the storytelling parts in King Diamond’s Abigail but fused with the romantic and gothic black metal that Cradle of Filth have built their name on.

“It is a perfect musical accompaniment to the spirit of the witching season,” mused Dani Filth, “invoking dark, Autumnal splendour and celebrating the time when the thin line between life and death is at its most tenuous and the denizens of the otherworld seek to break the veil into ours.”

Honorable Mentions:

Better Lovers – “Love as an Act of Rebellion”

Greg Puciato said that if he had to show someone one Better Lovers song, it would be this one. It hits on all the band’s lynchpins — from spastic mathy post-hardcore, to thrash metal, to somber post-rock — all in a unified and sub-four-minute arrangement. Pretty much all of the singles from the band’s new album Highly Irresponsible have made our HSOTW rundown, if that’s any indication of how much we dig this band and its knack for absolute rippers.

Jinjer – “Kafka”

Since releasing their last album, Ukrainian prog metal band Jinjer have witnessed their country go to war, invaded by Russia in 2022 in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War. One of the more inspiring heavy metal stories over the past couple years has been the band’s resilience in the face of this tragedy, continuing to write, record, and tour, eventually being granted permission to leave Ukraine in the hopes of raising money and awareness abroad as the war raged. It’s hard not to hear an inherent desperation, anger, and triumph in a song like “Kafka,” which was likely penned in the wake of the invasion. Here, the band’s prog — a genre that can sometimes be rather sterile — is as emotionally charged as ever.

Mark Morton – “The Needle and the Spoon (feat. Neil Fallon)”

Clutch are a modern band that has carried the torch for the ’70s southern rock sound, so it’s great hearing Neil Fallon singing some Skynyrd alongside Lamb of God’s Mark Morton, who continues to explore non-metal genres through his solo material. “The Needle and the Spoon” is just on the outskirts of the Skynyrd songs that remain in heavy rotation: firstly, it’s a great, underrated song with one of the band’s most memorable guitar riffs; secondly, it’s one of Lynyrd Skynyrd songs that hasn’t been played into the ground by classic rock radio. This rendition from Morton and Fallon is fresh and inspired, delivered with a bit more stoner-rock grit than the original.