I originally thought that this was a complete re-recording of Cruelty... fortunately I was wrong. This is a remix of the original album. It preserves the performances and the spirit of the original recordings. That is hugely important to me, as a rerecording of these classic riffs, drums and vocals would fall short no matter how spirited they were.
The main improvement here is the drums... my god were the click clacks of the base drum on the original release were so annoying. I got used to them eventually but I will never know what the band was thinking using those kind of triggers. Barker's performance is brilliant as one would expect, and now the drum sound matches the talent.
In terms of the rest of the music it's hard to say anything about this that hasn't already been said. The riffs are a brilliant combination of Iron Maiden harmonies, gothic influenced keyboards, and black metal. The band knows how to combine all of these individual components to create music that is incredibly catchy, yet harsh enough to be called extreme.
The way the guitars, keyboards, and vocals interlace with each other is so expertly done and crafted that it's hard for me to think of a better example than early Cradle. The one sticking point for so many people all those years ago was Dani's crazy vocals. They were so harsh and screechy that they turned people off. Now, 20+ years later they have become the central part of the band's sound.
Cradle is a band that has had ups and downs throughout their lengthy career at this point. With Cruelty though... this was one of the highest points of their career.
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