Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder

Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder (subtitled The Life and Crimes of Gilles de Rais) is the eighth studio album by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth. It was released on 28 October 2008, through record label Roadrunner. It is the band's fourth concept album, after Cruelty and the Beast (1998), Midian (2000), and Damnation and a Day (2003), dealing with the life of the 15th-century French baron Gilles de Rais. Recording and production The album was produced by Sabbat guitarist Andy Sneap, who had previously worked with Cradle of Filth while mixing the band's 2006 album, Thornography. Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder is Cradle of Filth's first album as a four-piece, rather than its usual six-man staple. It is also the last album to feature backing vocalist Sarah Jezebel Deva (although she briefly returned for Midnight in the Labyrinth in 2012) and the first to feature drummer Martin Škaroupka, replacing Adrian Erlandsson. The band's official message boards revealed parts of an interview with guitarist Paul Allender, conducted by Média Matin Québec: "We already have four new songs ready and I have to say that they are... much faster than the songs on Thornography. [They] sound like old Cradle of Filth... A mixture of Midian and Dusk...." The interview goes on to state that the album will be followed by a European and American tour. Dani Filth has described the album as, "our most extreme, dramatic and deeply disturbing album to date. The legend of Gilles de Rais has been given fresh, vampyrical life in this conceptual meisterwerk, swathed in pitch-black magic and a viciousness unsurpassed in the annals of Cradle history. Screw what our detractors say, everyone who has heard this album has bruised their jaws on the pentagram-bejewelled floor." In an interview with Blistering magazine, Filth revealed that three additional songs were recorded during the album sessions, among them an instrumental piece and a cover of Celtic Frost's "Into the Crypts of Rays". On the topic of their absence from the album, Filth has stated that they "were taken out so that the album wasn't too long. They'll turn up somewhere." They were ultimately included on the special edition.