Gateways

For a while now I’ve been wondering about the characteristics of the upcoming Dimmu Borgir album, and, as the picture became clearer and clearer, some realizations were made. The artwork (for both the album and the single) is basically Death Cult Armageddon version 2.0, while the promotional band pictures are extremely strange, kind of like a “Satanism meets Pirates of the Caribbean in the Himalayas”. Such secondary considerations aside, the music is what’s truly important and Gateways, the first single from the bizarrely titled Abrahadabra, bears witness to a band still doing what they’ve been perfecting during this last decade or so: symphonic extreme metal.

In the context of this last decade of the band’s existence, Gateways stands as an extremely epic, fast paced and aggressive number. While it’s by no means a perfect song, it does a pretty good job of representing the band’s career at this point and is surprisingly enjoyable.

The traditional elements of the modern Dimmu Borgir sound are all present here. First of all there’s the production, which is insanely polished and clean, ill-suited for most forms of black metal but ideal for the kind of metal Dimmu Borgir play: their usual mix of orchestral sounds and metal instrumentation largely reliant on technicality and complex patterns.

The orchestral section has a very important presence here, essentially being the backbone of the entire sound. It’s also quite varied, going from traditional string instruments to the occasional keyboard sounds designed to enhance the overall atmosphere. All this is excellent for the most part, but the massive use of the orchestra renders the guitars very secondary in importance. They’re barely there for the most part, only having a truly important part after the 3:10 mark, for a good 35 seconds. Otherwise they’re a bit too buried in the overall sound. The same can’t be said about the drumming, which is the band’s usual brand of double bass and extremely fast playing. This is basically a better sounding version of the somewhat too dry but extremely technical drumming used on Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia. The drumming is used to give a very strong feeling of war and aggression, which when combined with the orchestral section gives off a very epic feeling to the whole thing.

Finally there are the vocals, and they can be divided in two parts. First of all come Shagrath’s vocals, and they’re a nod to his most industrial, computer-enhanced moments (again, some moments from PEM and DCA). This sound is in a way refreshing because for a while he’d been doing the same slightly generic rasp (In Sorte Diaboli and the awful, awful Ov Hell album), which did however give off more of an authentic black metal feeling that his vocals here. There’s also a second set of vocals, those of Agnete Kjolsrud, and her vocals need a bit of getting used to. They’ve very high-pitched, but in a strange, computer-modified way… this isn’t Dani Filth, but a kind of weird witchy thing. Her vocals are tolerable but they don’t bring too much to the song (aside from a bit of variety). In the end, it’s an interesting if ultimately pointless addition to the Dimmu Borgir sound. That said, her more traditional vocal sections are much more enjoyable, such as towards the end of the song.

In the end, this is simply another modern Dimmu Borgir song doing what your usual song of this type does: it entertains. It’s an epic metal anthem that’s enjoyable as an “action song”, with a lot of energy and a good fusion of symphony and metal, but it’s no transcendental masterpiece. It’s not as good as, say, Kings of the Carnival Creation or Progenies of the Great Apocalypse. It’s simply an above average Dimmu Borgir song, and hopefully serves its purpose well as the annunciation of what Abrahadabra will sound like. I like this, and I must say that they’re on an enjoyable path.