Abrahadabra

The release of "In Sorte Diaboli" was seen as a bittersweet event among Dimmu Borgir's fans. On one hand, the disc was a huge commercial success (seeing a black metal band going at number one and being certified gold is always something undeniably cool) and included two songs that became real classics from the band. On the other, the album was, although not bad by any means, undeniably less memorable than past material, and it sounded as if Dimmu Borgir were running out of ideas. When the band announced "Abrahadabra" in 2010, everyone was eagerly awaiting for it, hoping our beloved musicians were going to put out yet another classic symphonic black metal effort. Unfortunately, things turned out to be quite different.

Despite the employment of the huge "Schola Cantorum Choir" and of the "Norwegian Radio Orchestra", for an ammounting total cast of more than one hundred musicians, and despite taking eleven months for the production process, Dimmu Borgir weren't able to make "Abrahadabra" the awesome album people were hoping for. Yes, the commercial success following its release was as always huge, but still this is undeniably the weakest effort of the Norwegian band to date.

The main problem with Abrahadabra is the songwriting, which is lacking when it comes to the basic element: the guitar department. The riffs are generally too basic, uninspired, unmemorable; although the orchestrations built upon them are often majestic, epic and complex, the guitars are the fundaments for any metal band, and in this release they were totally lacking depth and complexity, something that the band had accustomed us to. Take, for example, one of the decent tracks, "Dimmu Borgir": although the orchestral parts are really impressive, the guitar riffs are 90% basic chords. From the guys that had composed the stuff on albums like "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia", I frankly expected much more. Furthermore, the musical direction taken by the band seems honestly too commercially oriented, as if they wanted to compose something that could be listened by anyone on a rock radio. Which wouldn't be a problem, if they made up for memorable songs, but unfortunately this isn't the case, with two exceptions.

The first one is "Born Treacherous", the opening track of the album (excluding the intro). Its main riff is really amazing and will stick to your mind forever; it's distinguished by an amazing bridge with a fantastic crescendo of pathos and intensity delivered by the choirs and the orchestrations, a heavy breakdown, blast-beated pre-choruses and an epic, absolutely evil chorus. The vocal lines of the stanzas are absolutely catchy too. The second exception is "Gateways", another kickass track featuring the participation of Agnete Kjølsrud for the female vocal parts, one of the main highligths of the song. The fantastic pathos-fueled duet between her and Shagrath results in the second and probably best highlight from the album, completemented by inspired riffs, great soloing, unforgettable tremolo picking sessions and a crescendo accompanied by awesome drumming towards the end. Not to mention the remarkable orchestral work, making up for one of Dimmu Borgir's best songs to date.

As for the rest of the album, we have two decent tracks ("Chess With the Abyss" and "A Jewel Traced Through Coal"), that, although being nothing special at all, are at least pleasant to listen, and a fine but somehow lacking one, the aforementioned "Dimmu Borgir". As for the rest, it's honestly pretty bad. "Ritualist", for example, is quite self-redundant and repetitive in its structure and drags on for just too much time, a problem common to great part of the remaining platter, which results quite boring to listen. Also, the clean male vocals on tracks as "Endings and Continuations" really remark how severe was the loss of Vortex for the band, while in songs such as "Ritualist" and "Renewal" they just sound cringy as hell.

If only the band had been more inspired, composing an album of tracks on the same level as "Born Treacherous" or "Gateways", "Abrahadabra" would have been the fantastic album everyone was hoping for, instead of an uninspired, somehow poppish release. Luckily however, this wouldn't be the band's ending note.