Cradle Of Filth - Hammer of the Witches


Original Version Digipack Version Picture LP Version
1. Walpurgis Eve 1:29 1. Walpurgis Eve 1:29 1. Walpurgis Eve 1:29
2. Yours Immortally... 6:00 2. Yours Immortally... 6:00 2. Yours Immortally... 6:00
3. Enshrined in Crematoria 5:46 3. Enshrined in Crematoria 5:46 3. Enshrined in Crematoria 5:46
4. Deflowering the Maidenhead, Displeasuring the Goddess 6:56 4. Deflowering the Maidenhead, Displeasuring the Goddess 6:56 4. Deflowering the Maidenhead, Displeasuring the Goddess 6:56
5. Blackest Magick in Practice 6:50 5. Blackest Magick in Practice 6:50 5. Blackest Magick in Practice 6:50
6. The Monstrous Sabbat (Summoning the Coven) 1:51 6. The Monstrous Sabbat (Summoning the Coven) 1:51 6. The Monstrous Sabbat (Summoning the Coven) 1:51
7. Hammer of the Witches 6:28 7. Hammer of the Witches 6:28 7. Hammer of the Witches 6:28
8. Right Wing of the Garden Triptych 5:54 8. Right Wing of the Garden Triptych 5:54 8. Right Wing of the Garden Triptych 5:54
9. The Vampyre at My Side 5:45 9. The Vampyre at My Side 5:45 9. The Vampyre at My Side 5:45
10. Onward Christian Soldiers 6:59 10. Onward Christian Soldiers 6:59 10. Onward Christian Soldiers 6:59
11. Blooding the Hounds of Hell 2:10 11. Blooding the Hounds of Hell 2:10 11. Blooding the Hounds of Hell 2:10
12. King Of The Woods 6:17 12. King Of The Woods 6:17
13. Misericord 6:19 13. Misericord 6:19
total time 56:08 total time 68:47 total time 68:47


1. Walpurgis Eve



2. Yours Immortally…

Bedight, this pre-aestival
Festival drew darkly near
And our delight at its arrival
Was a roar to rival loosed Fenrir

Let the Hellish celebrations begin
Ragnarok is rolling, magma abrim
The blackest mass the Brocken has ever seen
Invoking Loki, smoking the red weed

We listen to the Glorification
Of Chernobog in a fog of elation
Denial is the vilest form of blasphemy

Standing on the cliffs that kiss burning winds
We are risen together
Brazen, exalting, a hiss of triumph rings
I am yours
...Yours immortally

Tonight the rites are right for raising spirits on
The Devil's Pulpit, The Witches Altar
The dead will dance macabre
To Chaos Magick psalters

A heavy thunder shadowing lightning
Forged for Judgement Day
Announces greater wonder, citing
Heralds on the starry way

And I held you like St Vitus
As the Sabbat leapt to play
Before the fever swelled to bite us
And we were swept to waylay
May Day

Standing on the cliffs that kiss burning winds
We are risen together
Brazen, exalting, a hiss of triumph rings
I am yours
...Yours immortally

Only those tortured
Could profess such festive scenes
And melodies
Of raucous wrought debauchery

No arthritic, sullen Goya
For this fresh Walpurgis Eve
Our flesh it breathes
Full of fantastic symphonies

Witness the fires reflected in infernal eyes
That blaze, alive
Eternal ties
Have trussed amazing lusts together

Procession, banquet, black mass, orgy

If our world were to cease right now
In the midst of this
Wide naked bliss, these stated sacred vows
I would break the universe in two
Just to side with you
To face the jealous heavens down

Excite the terse miscarriage
Of first light that thirsts to slay
This night versed with the marriage
Of you and I
And all who dare to stray


3. Enshrined In Crematoria

This night is chilled by ghosts
And the woods are full of werewolves
My heart is pounding with the stars
I feel the darkness rising

I'm blessed, addressed
By a voice of sweet caresses
Intoxication feeds
This freed reality
My inspiration speaks
Enshrined in crematoria

A sight of winged delight
Two great cherubim abreast her
Encase her grave, like once I prayed
Upon her sacred chest there

None more tragic for the lovelorn addict
Than the death of a beautiful girl

Although I was the author of sin
That compelled her wings to furl
She represents the pleasant scent
Of asphodel in this wretched world

Moonlight
Announce the presence of God again
The Ark of the Tragedian
Glitters like bright Hittite treasure

At best, obsessed
By her loss and my excesses
Judgementalism heaped
Upon the mercy seat
Means nothing to her sleep
Enshrined in crematoria

The trees are gaunt
But the cemetery beckons
Before her marble colonnades
I feel a stirring in the temple

As Israel waited with bated breath
At the foot of Mount Sinai
So I sated my wait for death
And miracles from on high
In wine and finite poetry
As fires bathed the sky

Moonlight
Announce the presence of God again
The Ark of the Tragedian
Church to her virgin measure

My tethered heart, a sacrificial lamb
Thrashes madly as the Lioness approaches

Moonlight
Announce the presence of God again
The Ark of the Tragedian
Is built on biblical pleasures

Poe-esque, grotesque
In my need for this catharsis
Her dark commandments teach
Through my prolific reach
A taste so bittersweet
Enshrined in crematoria

I find phantasmagoria
Enshrined in crematoria


4. Deflowering The Maidenhead, Displeasuring The Goddess

Cracked Mirrors scatter reflection
Beauty falls from Her state of perfection
Good grace has fled this dream
While the cat's away the rats will ravage

Despotic, Necrotic fingers
Have lingered with Rape's Affection
Hoods face this global scene
As they stoop to prey nature grows more savage

She shudders at our foetal, fatal touch
Heavenly her body reft and left amongst the dead
Once grateful seeds in Her natal hutch
Our species breeds, deflowering the maidenhead

Religions caw epistles
Twisted laws extend their thistles
A crown to justify
Our place atop this hellbound carriage

This judgment has come from on high
Deforesters pray to the amplified sky
Stripped of her gowns, temples ripped down
Her curses hearse NOW
This judgment has come from on high
Look to her spears with true fear in your eyes

Summoning the coven, The Four Horsemen, Eschaton
She, the sumptuous Earth deep scars were forced upon
Queen Catastrophia seer renewal grew to see
Humanity in ruins sped to Death on rotten knees

We freed the flames that came to haunt Her
The greed that tore Her Elvish bodice

She was the storm that warmed to slaughter
Our selfish needs displeasuring the Goddess

Plastering disasters, faster pandemics appear
Anthropocentric pockets, last plagues are spreading near
Grand levelling with seven tongues acerbic, whore-astride
As the oceans swell in venom at our slick black ecocide

This judgment has come from on high
Poisoners choke on the smoke-ridden Sty
Forewarnings ignored, faith in a Lord
Life's blessings uncared for
This judgment has come from on high
Suffer this Kiss as She whispers goodbye

Goodbye

What have we done?
And what have we become
In this distance from our Mother
From the gates of late Eden?

Blinded, undone
Glowering into the sun
A world of mass congestion smothered
In the waste of late Eden

and what of Her?
Gaia, Cybele
where is jewelled Ishtar
That shone forth like the stars?

Now maniacal
Now maniacal She moves against us all
To destroy, recreate anew
To dance amok amidst annihilation

Extinction greets foul creatures left
Deflowering the Maidenhead
Displeasuring the Goddess


5. Blackest Magick In Practice

I wish upon a star
And think of all the things
I should have asked
Instead, I let the moment pass
And now I'm bleeding
On her faded photographs

Tears
So hard to swallow
Sorrow blears and leaves me hollow
Empty years, I should have followed
My inamorata to the grave

Uncertain words my heart denied
Now seem so trivial
I lost it all the night she died

Lies!
She is alive!
Beneath the ice
Only darkest mirrors crack this
Curse
And I, immersed
Invoke the worst
Blackest Magick put to practice

I remember then
When the Autumn moon
Would turn us back again
We'd laugh and bask
Amidst the underworld of men
Both citing Baudelaire
As our immoral saviour

Tears
So hard to swallow
Sorrow blears and leaves me hollow
Empty years, I should have followed
My inamorata to the grave

Words are so benumbing
In my head, I hear the drumming
Summoning, the dead are coming
From fetid crypts my lips create

Now grave powers start to rise
Deflowerers shall suffer
And witness to your sacrifice

Lies!
She is alive!
Beneath the ice
Only darkest mirrors crack this
Curse
And I, immersed
Invoke the worst
Blackest Magick put to practice

I think upon our time
Those golden summers
Of love echo so sublime
As do winters drinking
Too much festive wine
Now the seasons shift
Neath a creeping mist of horror

Malefic entities
I call upon thee
Vibrating cosmic threads
With shredded flesh
Manifest destinies
For those opposing me
Everyone is killable
Some just choose a vulgar death

Now we will see
What terrors shall be
The dark crimson sea
Drags the sun to oblivion

Faced demons
Arousing fire with tongues
Laced with vicious memories
Spatter twisted trees

Rape is returned a thousandfold
In the garden of unearthly delights

Only when their minds lie in ruin
Will I then hand them the knife

Towers fall like broken skies
Crashing through to Hell
Where amid the debris, angels writhe

Lies!
She is alive!
Beneath the ice
Only darkest mirrors crack this
Curse
And I, immersed
Invoke the worst
Blackest Magick put to practice

Death left me hopelessly blinded
Resigned to the wrongs of his design
I will never be alright
Never be alright
Never see the light
That shone in the heart of heaven


6. The Monstrous Sabbat (Summoning The Coven)



7. Hammer Of The Witches

Breastfed red dementias
Familiar with their suckled hostess
Unhinge her bridle scold
A quest for misadventure
Wrests her glare of buckled gnosis
From bloodstained floor to holy centrefold

Death is tensing to explode

Inquisitioners sought her
Scenting the bent in her veins
Stripped and readied for torture
Enslaved to shame

The fist of humanity taught her
Scissors and spiked tourniquet
Dionysian daughter
Pressed to confess from the pain

I say, "Toll the demon bell
The rotting hearts of Man
Shall light the path from Hell."

Vestal desecrators
Familiar with her secret ewers
Soon tied to licking flame
Rest their 'tests' for later
As sweet revenge from reeking sewers
Uncoils and slides amidst this unfair game

A Storm is rolling in
Unleash the fucking curse...

Striking unbiblical chords that roar
Invoke raw branded skies
As forked lightning feeds the hordes of war
Her broken hands revive

Calling the fallen
Crawling from the shadows of God

Now their fables turn, blind faith learns
Papal sermons oft have lied
Save that the coven the Black Goat governs
Is very much wide-eyed, alive

She summons proof
On virulent wings, a plague is coming
Cuntfire-hoofed
From mating with the Devil
On the torch-lit Brocken

Baphometic by design

A penchant vent for vengeance
Cut deep by horrors fought
Those dungeon-screams for mercy
Shalt keep for everybody

Nine circles down they heard her
Ten times the hecatomb
A thousand souls for those church-murdered
Dark ken align to render doom

Their punishment overdue

For sisters, missed, once powerless
Tongues torn out by the root
Fell whispers rose to a seething congress
Of spirits born for Death's pursuit

Never a dusk so drunk on lust
Caressed the cobbles red
Frights she called, the flights of Ghouls
Left little of their brittle flesh

Judgment night descended
Like the bonfire's fall of ashes

Inquisitioners slaughtered
Venting the dent in her brain
Stripped and readied, debauchers
Prepared to stain

The gist of humanity taught her
Intolerance, murder in vein
Dionysian daugher
Soon to deliver the pain

I say, "Toll the demon bell
The rotting hearts of Man
Shall beat the path to Hell."

And refreshed of this dementia
Their thumbscrews,
Pears and cruel whiplashes
She turns her craft
To the next fat sacred grove


8. Right Wing Of The Garden Triptych

Death darkens all
Right wing of the garden triptych
Left marks The Fall
The middle ground apocalyptic

Why stay the grim inevitable and play out with a whimper?
Fate is raising coming to our faith!
NOW! The future cows!
Before the vows, prophets thunder from the heavens

We seek to justify, our seed spread far and wide
The eve that virtue died bore witness to this plague
Great hellscapes rape enflamed horizons here.....

This is the sore beginning to the war to end all wars
GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, this hate brings fever
GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, the great bereaver
Throw wide splintered lichgates to the eldritch show's return

Unforgiving proof accrual begs this cruel rebirth
A living fuel for the blaze of renewal razing the earth
Pariahs and messiahs of the highest worth, fodder for the denizens of risen
Hissing hell nothing screams out mercy more than vivisection of the soul

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, all base deceivers
Coddle abaddon, God, you got it wrong, now fall believers!
Liars and deniers, thick in mire's grasp, treacherous and lecherous
Retching a sick bloodbath

Peace sits alone midst the desecration sewn like a stony queen of winter, throned...
This is the penalty for lust- long dreaded, read in scripture, vain pleasures fed to paint this...

NOW! The future cows! Before the vows, prophets thunder from the heavens
We seek to justify, our seed spread far and wide
The eve that virtue died bore witness to this plague
Great hellscapes rape enflamed horizons here.....

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG a twilight for bone idols
Sewer-suicidal from the heights, a dead man's stance of prayer
Deafened ears to mortal plight

Pleas and effigies, clergy bang to rites belief is superficial when the missals dance alight

All death darkens all
Right wing of the garden triptych
Left marks the fall
The universe is at worst, ecliptic


9. The Vampyre At My Side

Accompanied by bloodshed
Neath the Reaper's sallow craw
In league with fallen angels
Came a wolf unto my door

A portrait of perfection
Potent her siren song
I spread my dreams beneath her feet
And had them royally pissed upon

Burning with this itching sickness of a tortured soul

Cloying
She exudes a lure more animal than human
Intoxicating chemistry
Baiting masturbators with a dominant handshake

This wicked bitch
Cruella to the bone
Each vivid stich
Just ties me to her throne
In exaltation
She builds on endless lies
Mircalla, Maleresian
Architect of my demise

Burning with this witching sickness of a tortured soul

Toying
I shudder at her touch so wonderful
Akin to a helpless pin
Snatched in maiden flight by a savage magnet

She's the boot heel kiss of annihilation

Gilded cunt worship
A war of hormones swarming south
As Insects hived in her succulent skull
Make a beeline for the honey mouth

My life once breathed like a ouija board
Just ghosts of 'yes', mostly ignored
So I wished for her and like tragedy she came
Dispensing hatred

Death amongst us all
The hypnotic guest that permeates the ball
Is a creature who has leeched me, beautiful
And beguiling in enticing whispers

And lest she breaks the fall
Be prepared for shattered miracles
The moon has never shone so red and terrible
As on that night my madness rose to kiss her

Strife then seethed like a terrible sea
Buried in a life lost prematurely
Classic Poe had no horrors on me
When her claws had dug deep enough

Enough!

Once hurting, for certain
A curtain of dark ravens has risen
Asserting 'nevermore'!

Nevermore!

Burning with the lifting sickness of a tortured soul

Joying
In the turn of her infernal final screw
Laughter masked Saturnalia
As the mallet in my linen wished her grin anew

That wicked bitch
Cruella to the bone
Each vivid stich
Just tied me to her throne
In exaltation
She built on endless lies
Mircalla, Maleresian
Architect of my despise

In exaltation
My sweet revenge presides
For I have lived through Sodom and tomorrow
And the vampyre at my side


10. Onward Christian Soldiers

Aching floorboards spoke my name
In the belly of the beast to foreign shores
In tune with tides that whispered fame
And fortune for our humble Lord

Ecclesiastical banners
Unfurl in the manner
Of those who seek conquest and gain

Sail forth for Outremer
The Promised Land prised from the hands
Of blasphemers amassing there
Awakened from the desert sands capes

Onward Christian soldiers
Fated Nazareth and Bethlehem
Have fallen to an enemy bolder
It is said to widespread slaughter and rape

We are all sinners, enslaved to the cross
God wills The Great War to erase
The Judaic acres, the Mohammedans
In defence of our revenant faith

Political prowess takes to the stage
A pilgrimage led bu the sword
The sweet maiden blast of our clarion rage
Against the foul heretic hordes

The blazing invader Crusader parade
Vatican sanctioned and Mammon adored

Now, papal-led to die
The fatal battle cry
A natural army vies
For stretching Christendom

Wide, we slay the infidel
Remiss our way to Hell
Pay well the wishing well
With golden martyrdom

Scaling the towers with power ordained
Dark flowers of infamy bud

Ransacking, hacking off Saracen reign
The temple drinks claret in floods

Mercy forgotten in our ill-gotten gain
Of women and innocent blood

Death abides in this domain of ashes
The streets are stained
With the butchered foe
Now I hear the bells of triumph ringing
As they lay there rotting in their thousand shrouds
Beneath the clouds
That skitter and scatter
Dispersions on the truth of heaven

We are all sinners, enslaved to the cross
God wills The Great War to erase
The Judaic acres, the Mohammedans
In defence of our revenant faith

No crescent moon
No prophet of doom
Shall wail above Jerusalem
Vast hypocrites
All grasping for glitz
Have taken The Mount and The Tomb

Here in the kingdom of loss


11. Blooding The Hounds Of Hell



12. King Of The Woods

[Bonus Track]Solsticial
The lake is as a mirror
For the moon
That shimmers high above
The sacrificial
Lamb becoming clearer
Soon shall be
Just a shave that craved her love

Arician oaks cloak the sacred grove
Wherein her priest
Awaits to greet
His successor to this ancient throne

The King Of The Woods
Stands staunchest guard
O'er the golden bough
In the eldritch haunts of Nemi where
I rake the fecund dells to take his crown

Midsummer night grows pensive
On the murder to befall
The incumbent fright defensive
Against my intense intent to rule

Divine right by the bravest slave
To perpetuate the flame
To ascend to watch blest vestals bathe
Where their temple bares Diana's name

The King Of The Woods
Rex Nemorensis
Cleaves the gilded tree
And accepts the sentence of the God
To rest his kindred spirit free

The Queen Of The Stars
Alights to earth
And from the silvered water's edge
She means to take me in her arms
But favours fulsome forest beds instead

Communion with heaven
The Goddess of the wild countryside

An Egeria and Virbius
We pleasure endeavour
Together we ride

I show my face, the lustrous one
And by my grace, all men undone
Fall neath my spell to fell delights
This one I chose, I froze on sight

Come sow me, mould me thy seed
So I might grow to Spring's relief
Fulfill the circle's ritual needs
Untold delights, twelve months to be

Torches draw me from this reverie
Where maids debauch me reverently
And when night dissolves, I self-absolve
Mounting my days with fate's resolve

Now
Deep in the coals of my soul
A hot tongue flickers
A reign for her flame to unfold
Before the hunt quickens Death's bow


13. Misericord

[Bonus Track]Nightmares on a roll
The spirit of fear
Has alighted here
Mercy on your soul...
This fright, crepuscular
Is muscular with vitriol

Misericord
I pass by as your shadow
The ghostly burning arrow
A marksman for your swerving heart

Misericord
I support your faith
When weary, in disgrace
You fall to doubt and pull all life apart

On this mist-enshrouded pathway
And through this hateful tarantella
In this thin labyrinth of razors
I shall grin, your soul's propeller

Misericord
Respite from the grief
These spiteful nightfall teeth
Grinding minds to tiny pieces

Misericord
Clockwork works the thief
Like an ever-ticking beast
Whose biting cogs self-denial greases

Drowned in alcohol
Sirens of the deep
Are demon forces
Mercy on your soul...
A life lived more monastic
Drastic measures must extol

On this mist-enshrouded pathway
And through this hateful tarantella
In this thin labyrinth of razors
I shall win, your soul's propeller

Bound to you like bloodline
Familiar with the cracks
The foul and fetid landscape
Just off the beaten tracks
Broods treacherous with sinkholes
The moon is doused in tar
And the fiend disaster preys upon
This straight and narrow path

Like an ever-ticking beast
Whose biting cogs self-denial greases

Misericord
I free you of the bond
To pain, now flee beyond
The veil of Death
Where peace holds reign

Misericord
I'm the killing stroke
The dagger in your throat
Under the armour
Calmer with its gain

Enemies take control
The swarming hordes
Have stormed the walls
Mercy on your soul...
Tonight I close your eyes
Before the temple falls

Before the temple falls


Marek Ashok Šmerda — Electric Carving Knife (guitars)
Dan Filth — Satanic Verses and Curses (lead vocals, lyrics)
Daniel James Firth — Throbbing Gristle (Bass)
Martin Marthus Škaroupka — Thunderbolts and Lightning Blasts (drums)
Richard Shaw — Blood Rusted Hooks (guitars)
Lindsey Schoolcraft — Black and White Witchcraft, Incantation (female vocals, harp)


Lyrics in plain text format





Main Page Bands Page Links Statistics Trading list Forum Email Zenial