Shirt Stains: Filthy Cradle

July 8, 2016

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Say what you will about Cradle of Filth. That’s it. That’s the end of that sentence. Go ahead and head to the comments section to say what you want about Cradle of Filth. They are, or at least were, a fairly divisive band in the greater metal community. Their popularity amongst the Hot Topic mall metal crowd rubbed “trve” metal fans the wrong way. Dani Filth’s, um, unique vocals have been a turn-off for those who might otherwise enjoy CoF’s training wheels version of symphonic black metal. Whether you like their music is irrelevant right now because this is Shirt Stains where we make fun of band merch and, oh sweet Nymphetamine does Cradle Of Filth have awful, no good, very bad merchandise.

Her Lolbuttz In The Fog

What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on with this shirt? Let’s break it down: Bald, giant that kind of looks like Jens Kidman from Meshuggah has flames for hair and the chin of Jay Leno. He/She/It has dragonfly wings and an expression that says “Psssssh…yeeeeeah I think I’ll get a slice of the Heath Bar Cake. What the hell, I’m on vacation.” To make matters worse (?) the giant has a face and hand of a smaller giant bursting out of it’s chest and turning it into a game of Breakout

What does any of this have to do with Cradle of Filth. I don’t know and more importantly I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know if it’s a reference to a song or an album. I don’t want to know if it comes from one of Dani Filth’s wet trees where he’s running through a fog-filled forest backwards while screeching “I’ve been a bad wittle boy.” I don’t want to know if this is the only thing on their rider and they will only play if this exact scene is recreated using Beanie Babies.

This looks familiar…

A demonic Pope on a heavy metal shirt? How incredibly and totally original! Man, I really need to add those types of shirts to my Shirt Stains to-do pile. In fact, the band Savage Messiah logo pretty much the same thing as this shirt. It doesn’t matter which one is first, Savage Messiah have laid claim to this very ridiculous idea. Let them have it. Please let them have it.

Cradle Of Filth shirts are known to push the envelopes of decency and good taste (as you’ll see below). This one is pretty tame in comparison to the point where it’s almost funny. Pope looks like he’s either about to dive mouth first into a pile of Burger King Mac n’ Cheetos or he’s about to sneeze something fierce. Like one of those sneezes where your nostrils start to tickle and you feel it building and building and you just let it out with the force of a thousand dying suns. Is he planning to stab you or himself with that crucifix? I guess we’ll never know. It’s one of life’s little mysteries along with “Who would buy this?” and “How many times did they get their underwear pulled over their head while wearing this?”

A Gothic Bromance

Is that…is that supposed to be Dani Filth? I’m not even trying to be funny when I ask that. I am genuinely unsure if that is indeed Mr. Filth or a lady. I’m pretty sure it’s him, but not enough to pick him out of a lineup should the authorities require it. It looks like he’s lost weight. A lot of weight. Are you on Atkins, Dani? Looks like you need a whole new wardrobe, buddy.

Is he in pain? Excitement? Is he yawning? Where did his left hand go? Why is his right hand getting all grabby with his chesticle area? I’m sure there’s a bone-ing/skeleton joke somewhere in there, but it’s not worth fleshing out. Heeey, the joke worked itself out. It’s nice when things work out that way.

Sports Goth

Lots of different wearables come to mind when thinking of a band like Cradle of Filth: T-shirts, long sleeves, hoodies to be sure, but also more extravagant things like corsets, fingerless fishnet gloves, vinyl mini skirts, black lipstick. You get the idea. A baseball hat is not one of those things I would expect the band to sell. There are actually a few out there. It just seems a little weird since they don’t come off like a “baseball hat” kind of band. Machine Head, Pantera, Korn and, uh, Infant Annihilator all make sense. A Cradle of Filth hat just seems out of left field.

It doesn’t help that this hat is uglier than the reaction from a drunken Red Sox fan after you remind them that David Ortiz tested positive for performance-enhancing substances in 2003. Their already kind-of hard-to-read logo does not lend itself to quality stitching. Everything is smushed together to make it look like it says Graple Of Earth. What’s with the green face? Is it supposed to be some sort of tentacle-faced monster? A martian eating a strawberry with his two best maggot buddies? I don’t know what the triangle is supposed to mean. It would’ve been better off taking Smash Mouth’s advice and look kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead. After all, the years start coming and they don’t stop coming.