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Dimmu Borgir > Stormblåst > Reviews > Diamhea
Dimmu Borgir - Stormblåst

Storm blown indeed. - 45%

Diamhea, March 6th, 2014

What a fine, fine mess we have here. To be fair, Dimmu Borgir shuffled the cards up quite a bit following their abominable debut, increasing the presence of Aarstad and solidifying the lineup into something that at the very least resembles cohesion. Stormblåst has its moments, but still manages to kneecap itself more often than not, no matter how diabolic and vile the band wants you to think they are. It's like the outcast kid in high school who shows up to school one day wearing a black trench coat, only to trip on it in the hallway in front of everybody. It's just awkward for all involved.

The band tries to summon such a dank and sinister atmosphere, but can honestly only get away with it when Aarstad is highlighted. Take the opener "Alt lys er svunnet hen" for example. Despite the keyboard intro being ganked in exactitude from Magnum's Chase the Dragon, it admittedly fits well into the atmospheric confines of symphonic black metal. Enjoy it while you can, because this vibe will only last for the first three minutes, at which point the first of Silenoz's absurd roars crackles through your speakers and neuters the atmosphere. I get that most fans prefer Silenoz's more traditional rasps over Shagrath's robotic warbling, but I honestly have trouble deciding which one of these stark-white dolts offends me more.

Being severely front-loaded, Stormblåst manages to rumble along without necessarily getting much worse all the way through the end of "Sorgens kammer". Somewhere, hidden under mountains of forced obscurity and obfuscation, these are well written and solid songs. The 2005 reissue all but proved as much, even if the production here still leaves much to be desired. "Sorgens kammer" is one of the few highlights of the album. Much fuss has been made over Aarstad's plagiarism, but he definitely knew which melodies to ape to earn great atmospheric returns. This isn't an exact transposition of the Agony tune (which was accidentally programmed a step up in the game itself), but it still works extremely well. "Broderskapets ring" might be the only song that revels in the lo-fi production values enough to impress on all fronts. I'm not sure which version of the song I prefer, as it is a truly malleable piece of work that hits all of the right ambient marks while coming across as genuine in its misanthropic delivery. It certainly summons a glimmer of hope deep within the cerebrum.

...and then the band flops over and dies for virtually the entire second half of the album. The only song that doesn't fall entirely flat is the title track, which stormblows its load early but still gets by without flagging too much. The rest is wholly ineffective. The feigned agony of the vocal performance, the machine gun drums, the meandering riffs, it all merges into such a limp-wristed and feeble whole. It actually reminds me of some of the more offensive moments on Limbonic Art's In Abhorrence Dementia, which was equally bombastic without anything of marked substance behind it.

Dimmu Borgir earns a few brownie points for shifting Tjodalv to drums, as he is a huge improvement over Shagrath's mess of a performance on For all Tid. For some reason he lacks the ability to blast properly, but he tries to keep himself busy on the top end of the kit and gets a pass. It's obvious that the band put a lot of effort into learning their respective instruments in the downtime between the debut and Stormblåst, but they so rarely put their newly-acquired chops to good use. It would almost be disappointing if they didn't later prove that they can stink it up on both ends of the spectrum. Dimmu Borgir managed to hit the magic formula on Enthrone Darkness Triumphant and to a lesser extent Godless Savage Garden, but they quickly lost the plot again afterward. As overcooked and laughable as their later material may be, don't let anybody tell you that Stormblåst is the band's true masterpiece. Get the re-release instead, which gives this material a well-deserved facelift.