Extreme black metal gods Cradle Of Filth wreaked havoc on 2015 with Hammer Of The Witches. Inspired by the book Malleus Maleficarum, Hammer Of The Witches draws upon older Filthy works and sports an aggressiveness not seen in previous years. Watch out for CoF on a North American headlining run in 2016!

Mainman Dani Filth spoke to BraveWords and how the album was inspired by Malleus Maleficarum: “I’ve always had a copy of it, as far as I can remember. We live in the Witch County here in Suffolk. My wife and I used to live in a house that The Witchfinder General – the one that was portrayed by Vincent Price in the film The Witchfinder General, called Matthew Hopkins – once frequented, allegedly. So, I think that was the catalyst to buy the book years and years ago. I’ve actually got several copies of it. When the initial first songs started coming in, I was toying with this idea. I had to come up with something quite quickly, as a sort of rudimentary springboard. I saw the book on the shelf and thought, hmmm – the translation is Hammer Of The Witches – yeah, that’s quite cool. I see it as more they (the witches) have the power this time; rather than being oppressed. It kind of just grew from there. It’s really strange, rather than having a working title of ‘Bob’ or something like that, it was quite appropriate. Social media’s a wonderful thing. As soon as I mentioned it, people were saying they really liked it. And it was always the intention to change it, but it just kind of grew. It grew into a song, and that song flowered into the album title. The artist who worked on the album – Artus Berzinsh, a Latvian artist – did a brilliant job of bringing the lyricism to life; he liked it as well so he used it as a catalyst to start work from.”

Read more at BraveWords

BravePicks 2015 Top 30

1) 
2) 
3) 
4) 
5)
6) 
7) 
8) 
9) 
10) 
11)
12) 
13) CRADLE OF FILTH - Hammer Of The Witches (Nuclear Blast)
14) AMORPHIS – Under The Red Cloud (Nuclear Blast)
15) MELECHESH - Enki (Nuclear Blast)
16) NAPALM DEATH - Apex Predator - Easy Meat (Century Media)
17) GHOST - Meliora (Loma Vista Recordings)
18) MOTÖRHEAD – Bad Magic (UDR)
19) MARDUK - Frontschwein (Century Media)
20) LAMB OF GOD - VII: Sturm Und Drang (Epic)
21) SYMPHONY X - Underworld (Nuclear Blast) 
22) HELLOWEEN - My God-Given Right (Nuclear Blast)
23) MICHAEL SCHENKER’S TEMPLE OF ROCK – Spirit On A Mission (Inakustik)
24) SAXON - Battering Ram (UDR)
25) KAMELOT - Haven (Napalm Records)
26) VENOM - From The Very Depths (Spinefarm)
27) CHILDREN OF BODOM - I Worship Chaos (Nuclear Blast)
28) KATAKLYSM - Of Ghosts And Gods (Nuclear Blast)
29) EUROPE - War Of Kings (UDR)
30) MY DYING BRIDE - Feel The Misery (Peaceville)