Cradle of Filth

With growing disinterest in gothic, pulse-pounding metal in the United States, veteran English rockers Cradle of Filth now spend most of their time touring Europe. The band’s latest album, Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder, won’t do much to win the band a new stateside following, but it will please the established faithful. This time out the band supplements their skull-crushing riffs and from-the-grave vocals with a themed song cycle about Gilles de Rais, the French soldier who fought side-by-side with Joan of Arcthen emerged infamously as a serial killer. Ambitious and almost proggy in its grandeur, the album takes a mostly sympathetic look at the storied child murderer. Cradle of Filth plays an 8 p.m. show at the Rave tonight.