Robin Graves

Robin Graves — born in England in 1972 — was Cradle of Filth's bassist through the 1990s, the period in which the band established itself as the British name in extreme metal. He was on the records that made the group's reputation: The Principle of Evil Made Flesh (1994), Dusk... and Her Embrace (1996) and Cruelty and the Beast (1998), the concept album about Elizabeth Báthory that became the band's most cited work. His function in that repertoire is among the least obvious. Cradle of Filth builds its tracks on simultaneous layers — tremolo guitars, symphonic keyboards, female choirs and Dani Filth's high voice — and the bass is what keeps that mass from losing its floor. In passages of continuous blast beat, it is the bass line that keeps the harmonic reference audible when everything else dissolves into speed. He belongs to the classic 1990s line-up, the one that set the formula Cradle of Filth would practise for the three decades that followed.