Eonian

After two succesive albums with uninspired ideas, the band took a break, formed families, focused on side-projects, and tried to improve their musicianship. This is obvious in the fact that Eonian was released in almost eight years since Abrahadabra, and in the extremely consistent details found in the overall songwriting. I've followed the development process over the years, as much as I could, noticing some prog metal icons helping them in their quest for an improved sound (the picture where Shagrath "teaches" Devin Townsend guitar lessons comes to mind - obviously, a joke made by the band). Unfortunately, I am dissapointed, although there are more impressive songs here than on the past two albums combined.

First, Shagrath needs to quit being a vocalist. It isn't a matter of sucking anymore, as this is a truism by now, but also of him not being able to push himself any further. He tries "new" tricks, but it's just a pathetic compensation. Every time I hear him live, my throat hurts, trying to understand why the hell is he trying anymore. He is a competent instrumentalist and has that potential as a keyboard player and film score composer. He also has that hard rock/traditional heavy/speed metal edge as a guitarist, which I enjoy almost everytime.

Speaking of his abilities, he drummed for this album, before giving Daray the spot to develop his ideas. He also composed the keyboard parts, and his influence in shaping the album is obvious as the presence of the sun on a clear sky, in the middle of the day. This is where the album actually fails. Imagine a Chrome Division album with blackened atmosphere, without the speed metal edge, and orchestras. Top that with some minor modern proggy influences and it's quite the chimera. I can admire the effort and the boldness of this attempt of a synthesis of styles, but they need more focus in composing.

Theme wise, the band opted for concepts dealing with transcendent, time, life, and the occult. Nice topics, but the delivery is laughable. It sound like a corporate team building soundtrack, with a basic English. It just spells "sell out" from the get-go... In the past, there was that arrogance, the self-confidence, the venomous passion which convinced you about their messages, coupled with the extreme vocals, yet now, the band look prematurely aged, like the old men who are nice to hear, you can admire their way of speaking, but forget about them the next day.

This feeling of forgetfulness is also present in the songwriting. Most of the song don't seem to have an idea of progression from point A to point B, looking more like colages of song ideas and unrefined jam sessions. This is also the issue with modern progressive metal, where experiments are delivered as songs, without ideas of what exactly should be the message behind them. It seems that Dimmu Borgir took only the flaws from the genre, and not the pluses. This is a shame, because black metal is a progressive-based genre, due to the fact that it's full of conceptual releases.

The more focused songs on this album are Interdimensional Summit, Alpha Aeon Omega, Rite of Passage, and somewhat The Empyrean Phoenix, and Council of Wolves and Snakes. The last two are also, somewhat superficial, because the atmospheric parts are just fleeting moments, without proper exploitation. The outro serves as an example of how good they can be at doing atmospheric tracks. The first track mentioned, also the first album single, is just a cash grab, reminding me of Lordi and Nightwish, but with more talented musicians, who are also lazy and quite the sellouts. Alpha Aeon Omega is the most intense track of the album, which reminds me of the Spiritual Black Dimensions times. It deserves better vocals, as it has the only scream in the whole album, and it delivers with extreme passion.

In the end, this album is not a total fail. It is bad that this was all they managed in this amount of time, as they still compose nice pieces of music, but: 1. they don't know what they want; 2. they don't push themselves to their limits, by focusing more on their strengths, and recruiting the personnel to better minimize their weaknesses; 3. they are overambitious in intentions yet, they don't take a step back to review the final product, before bragging about their million purposes and ideas present in the album, and how proud they are about it (*cough*MARKETING*cough*). This struggle of searching for trends and ideas, without a "raison d'ètre", coupled with the abuse of stylistic heterogeneous elements and under-performances, will lead to the band's entry into irrelevance.

P.S. Why the fuck did they had to include the fake laughter parts in Lightbringer? And why do they have to have a track in every album, where Shagrath needs to laugh? The shit got old by 2001...