arcane-beautiful After pretty much bringing black metal to the masses with their previous album, Dimmu decided to come back with something a little different. A concept album!

I remember when this album had first come out. Having just got into the band, I was really excited for this album due to it's first single, its concept and the cover. I really have a visual arousal for the cover of this album, due to my slight obsession with the Baphomet figure. Always a treat and usually always seen as the wallpaper on my phone or laptop. I'd print the cover of this album out as wallpaper for my house if I could.

Musically the band see a bit of a departure from their last 2 albums. With the departure of Nicholas Barker, the band where able to recruit legendary black metal drummer Hellhammer to provide some sick drumming on this album. Don't get me wrong, Nick Barker was an astounding drummer, but nowhere does he come close to the powerful feet of Hellhammer. Another pretty massive change for this album is that there is no orchestra accompanying the band anymore. But instead, Mustis' keyboards provide the orchestrations, and I have to admit, what he is able to do with simple keyboards and programming is pretty impressive.

Lyrically the album tells of a story of a monk in the Middle Ages who goes on a spiritual journey to find God, but instead find the Devil instead and become the Antichrist. Now I would say that this story is rather cheesy, but lyrically it's very ambivalent. Dimmu's brand of Satanism is very smart, with blasphemy taking a backseat for genuine philosophical debate.

The opening track and first single “The Serpentine Offering” is definitely one of the bands biggest achievements. An absolutely powerful dark and twisted song, this track is just perfect in every way. From some of the most crushing riffs the band have ever created, to Shagrath's amazing vocal delivery to the beautiful middle section sung by I.C.S. Vortex, this track is a masterpiece of metal.

The album's third single “The Chosen Legacy” is probably one of the most anthemic songs on the album. With the albums title being chanted over and over again in the song, it is hard not to bang your head and rock the devil horns while listening to this tune.

The album's second single to be released “The Sacrilegious Scorn” is very interesting piece of music. Almost split into many different sections, the song moves into different movements and emotions throughout the song, almost showing the emotional side of the protagonist of the album's concept. Maybe not intended to this way, but to me it very much represents it.

The albums emotional climax is very much seen on “The Sinister Awakening.” With a powerful anthemic Satanic chorus, where can't you go wrong. Some pretty killer and chilling riffs are heard in this song too.

One of the best lyrical moments on the album has to be “The Fundamental Alienation.” The song gives a rather ambivalent spin to the story which I like. The song has a pretty killer chorus too.

In conclusion, this album is pretty much a classic for this band. I wouldn't say this is the band's best release, but it is definitely up there among their most classic material and is one of my personal favourites from the band. Evil as hell with a concept and story to boot, the band really outdid themselves on this challenging release.

8.4/10

Genres: Symphonic Black Metal, Black Metal, Symphonic Metal, Extreme Metal, Progressive Metal

Country of origin: Norway

Year of release: 2007

Warthur OK, fine, Dimmu Borgir's In Sorte Diaboli isn't very "kvlt" and is miles away from the lo-fi and defiantly anti-commercial aesthetic prized by the pioneers of the Norwegian black metal scene. I'm not going to pretend that you're going to enjoy this album if you listen to it expecting something along the lines of classic Darkthrone because that really isn't what it offers, and Dimmu Borgir have shown next to no sign of really be interested in doing that for well over a decade by this point.

However, it is at least a fun album, an entertaining listen offering an over-the-top sound which feels like a version of Cradle of Filth's sound that remains a little more true to their black metal roots than Filth's black-gothic-symphonic mashup is. Dimmu Borgir seem to rely on the synthesisers a little less than usual this time around and their performances are generally a lot tighter than I've got used to them being, and so this silly Dennis Wheatley-esque horror story concept album is a reasonably enjoyable listen from beginning to end. You'd never mistake it for a classic of the genre, and I can't say it's ever going to get very regular rotation from me, but it's worth hearing once.

topofsm The extreme metal crowd is a tough crowd to please. If you claim to be a death, black, or thrash metal band, you had better damn well follow through with what you say there are. Otherwise, stuff like Dimmu Borgir tends to happen. Instead of insanely heavy crushing, tearing black metal riffs, they like to use standard chugging along basic synths and replace the lo-fi atmosphere with standard orchestrated stuff. Overall, the black metal crowd does not get very pleased.

It can all be summed up with the phrase "blackened pop". While maybe it is a bit of a hyperbolic statement, it still rather describes Dimmu's later output well. It can hardly be called extreme, and some of the sections are downright danceable. Sure, there are quick double basses and tremolo pickings to be found on In Sorte Diaboli, but there's also singsong choruses, basic synths, poppy riffs, and even the vocals are rather discernable (nearly hypocrisy in black metal's realm).

What doesn't help is the production on the album. Say what you will about their recent output, it has generally good mixing, but the production is quite loud on this album, resulting in a lot of dry noise wherever the drums tend to overplay (a lot).

It also doesn't help that there are tons of angular sections of each song that seem to be put together piecemeal to make a 4-minute song. This is exemplified in the opening, "The Serpentine Offering", which starts off with a building orchestral theme, continues on, and then slows down into a more rock-based section. Then without warning it goes back into the marching theme to repeat the chorus. From there in swaggers back into its slower melodic bridge section for the singing. From there it changes times twice. The rather blender-like sections with no musical relation don't help the album whatsoever.

This is the case for most of the album, making it a tiring listen. Not only do the song structures seem to be jumbled up so the band can clam coherent four to five minute songs, but the drums play unnecessarily fast in parts. For example, "The Sacriligeous Scorn" starts off with a bouncy haunting synth riff for several bars, and suddenly comes into a blast beat. Such playing is common on the album, and while blastbeats and quick two-step drumming is common practice is common in black metal, Dimmu's midpaced music and melodic base doesn't bode well with the drumming. Especially on such a loudly produced record, where everything sounds like a producer's mess, a place where overplaying drums can do wonders to damage an album. There are plenty of progressive black metal bands (Arcturus, Enslaved, Borknagar) that play relatively slower paced black music and it doesn't need to be overplayed.

Particularly egregious is the fact that the band seems to want to put together a coherent work. There are several reoccurring lyrics that pop up in several places on the album, and it ends up telling a complete story. But it seems like Dimmu lacked the musical ideas and pieced together a few riffs with the glue of some bombastic keyboards and unnecessary drumming.

Overall, In Sorte Diaboli is the pinnacle of everything many dislike about Dimmu Borgir. There's nothing extreme about the songs themselves, and the unnecessarily double-bass friendly drums do the best to disguise the record as something extreme, even though under it all it's basic midtempo standard metal. The songs are pieced together poorly, and it's poorly produced. Even among Dimmu's latest there's a lot more worthy things to listen to. Avoid unless you know what you're getting into.