Abrahadabra

Dimmu Borgir has, undoubtedly, been a topic of much musical debate over the past decade. Some loved Death Cult Armageddon's sweeping high's and lows with the grand orchestra, some hated it. Some loved "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia"'s new found keyboards and industrial sound (Need I mention the track Puritania here?), while others cringed away. Regardless, the band HAS proven that they are masters of experimentation and can still provide music that has both repulsed and awed metal heads alike.

Now, I was a huge fan of Death Cult Armageddon, with tracks like "Eradication Instincts Defined", "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse", and "Blood Hunger Doctrine" sitting an all time amount of plays for my playlist. So naturally when I heard about Abrahadabra's ambitious recording and use of a full blown orchestra, I was quite keen to hear what these guys had been up to.

I have never been so fucking dissapointed.

The album starts off with "Xibir", a purely instrumental track that showcases the orchestra used for this album. At first I was literally ecstatic, I felt like I was about to listen the soundtrack that many might define as "Death Cult Armegeddon II". However as the album drones on, it is clearly apparent that this is NOT such. It's not that the music is bad here; it's that the the orchestra and, well, "rest of the band" just don't mix at all. For example, "Born Treacherous" has an extremely annoying hammer on pull off riff at the start but later brings in the orchestra, however the latter completely overwhelms any of Galder and Silenoz' guitar work at parts and other times fades into the back behind incessant riffing. And it's not just this song, this whole damn formula happens several times over the length of the album.

It just feels like "Abrahadabra" is just too ambitious for it's own good- by the time I began to develop any sense of rhythm, or even find some form of recognizable melody, the tempo completely changes to something else entirely and throws off anything that was accomplished thus far and the guitars and orchestra trade places. I daresay that the guitar work is almost boring at times- tracks like "Dimmu Borgir" start off with some eerie chanting and showcase the orchestra once again, but the guitar just falls flat and provides background noise. And it's not just boring guitar work that pushes me away from this album. At times I could have -sworn- I heard a Dani Filth scream and other times wondering if Shagrath was actually singing, or just auto tuning the fuck out of his voice once again.

Keener readers may recall I wrote a review as well for "Gateways", the albums first single, and I gave it generally high praise. That's because the song has some form of melody and coherence, and ends on a pretty damn epic note. It stood out pretty well, with Agnete's vocals and the effective use of black metal blasting and orchestra. However, the rest of the album just feels like I gigantic piece of filler material, with nothing leaving a really notable impression. Some songs have their moments, like Snowy Shaw on "Renewal", and the guitar march/orchestra trade off during "The Demiurge Molecule" along with the slamming booms that follow, but ultimately it's just cheap thrills and a few occasional moments of interest.

While the band lineup has changed noticeably over the past few years, I was not to concerned because Dimmu has always been able to adapt to new sounds for the most part, but ICS Vortex's lack of presence is VERY noticeable on this album. While I was as big a fan of him and Mustis as the next, I was not one of the fanboys insisting that Dimmu was dead. In the past however, Vortex was the one who was usually pounding out the bass chords (Which actually arent that bad along side Galder and Silenoz on this album) and providing the wailing melodies (See: Progenies of the Great Apocalypse) that pushed the whole thing forward. Such is not the case here. Instead of the usual formula, we're left with either creepy Shagrath robot narrative, or boring bridges or random spurts of orchestra.

Ultimately, the album falls flat in the end. Ironically, the title, "Abrahadabra", roughly translates to "I will create as I speak", and it sounds like they're literally sticking true to that. The album just seems to make itself up as it goes along, producing a piece of music that will be remembered by it's failures, rather than successes.