After months of rumors and speculation, British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH have officially confirmed the departure of drummer Adrian Erlandsson. According to an official press release, "Erlandsson has found that his two side projects NEEDLEYE and NEMHAIN are taking up more and more of his time and has made the decision to leave COF so he can concentrate more of his energies on them."

Commented Adrian: "I have enjoyed my time with CRADLE but it is now time to move on. I feel I am going out on a high as 'Thornography' is definitely our best album to date."

Over the course of the last few months, rumors of Adrian's departure have been gaining strength, with several "in-the-know" parties claiming that Adrian was fired from the group just days before they were to sign a new publishing deal. As a result, it was reported (but not officially confirmed) that Erlandsson was relegated to the status of a "session" member (whereby he was paid only for time worked and was not entitled to any publishing or artist royalties), a situation which was rumored to have strained his relationship with the band's frontman Dani Davey (a.k.a. Dani Filth).

In the last few weeks, Erlandsson — a native Swede who was in AT THE GATES and THE HAUNTED prior to joining CRADLE OF FILTH — has been getting increasingly involved in outside projects — such as NEMHAIN (which is fronted by Erlandsson's wife, fetish model Morrigan Hel; a.k.a. Amber England) and NEEDLEYE — culminating in his non-appearance in CRADLE OF FILTH's new video for the song "Temptation".