Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder (subtitled The Life and Crimes of Gilles de Rais) is the eighth studio album by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth.

[1][2][3] It is the band's fourth concept album, after Cruelty and the Beast (1998), Midian (2000), and Damnation and a Day (2003), dealing with the life of the 15th-century French baron Gilles de Rais.

The legend of Gilles de Rais has been given fresh, vampyrical life in this conceptual meisterwerk, swathed in pitch-black magic and a viciousness unsurpassed in the annals of Cradle history.

"[4] In an interview with Blistering magazine, Filth revealed that three additional songs were recorded during the album sessions, among them an instrumental piece and a cover of Celtic Frost's "Into the Crypts of Rays".

In an interview published in February 2009, Dani talked about Gilles de Rais, and how his story manifests on Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder: After Joan of Arc's death, he slid into a life of debauchery, which ended up with him trying to reclaim his fortune through alchemy and witchcraft.

Terrorizer called it "A much more cohesive, consistent and convincing album than Cradle have made for ages... Too samey to justify 71 minutes, but ultimately this is cracking..."[28] Kerrang!

called it "Grandiose, epic but still feral... eclipses the relatively weak Thornography... mixes scorching dynamics, atmosphere and overblown theatrics..."[25] Metal Hammer wrote that it "Ticks all the band's usual boxes, while also boasting genuine narrative depth and real emotional resonance... Cradle's heaviest album yet and their strongest set of songs..."[29] All lyrics are written by Dani Filth; all music is composed by Paul Allender, Mark Newby-Robson and Cradle of Filth, except where indicated