I've had a stressful week, dealing with home repairs, work and a host of other things.
The Odyssey decided that it was time for me to get my angry on, I suppose.
Disc 186 is...Death Cult Armageddon
Artist: Dimmu Borgir
Year of Release: 2003
What’s Up With The Cover?: Pretty basic. Black, with pentagrams and nasty looking font. The cover to this album is actually just an extra slip of paper put in front of the booklet. The booklet has this apocalyptic "Terminator Future" cover:
If you think this is troubling, you should see some of the pictures inside the booklet. Let's just say Dimmu Borgir is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
How I Came To Know It: My friend Kelly is into black metal/death metal these days, and he brought some over a while back and I liked it, so he bought me this album as a gift.
How It Stacks Up: Dimmu Borgir has been around a long time, and have nine studio albums dating back to 1994. This is the only one I have. I like it fine - I think I prefer another one Kelly has played recently called "In Sorte Diaboli" but not enough to add to the collection. I'm not a Black Metal convert, although I readily admit Dimmu Borgir's talent.
Rating: 3 stars.
Dimmu Borgir is a Norwegian Black Metal band. The name means "Dark Castle" or "Dark Fortress" in Norwegian.
Black Metal is not for everyone. Putting this album on in my car was a lot like getting into a bathtub where the water is too hot. For the first ten minutes or so it was uncomfortable - the auditory equivalent of being scalded. But once you get used to it, it is actually fairly enjoyable.
The energy of this music is undeniable, and it definitely gets the blood pumping. It is an assault on the senses, with a lot of pounding double bass drum and thrash guitar. What sets it apart from other metal close to the genre (like Death Metal, for example) is the melodic, symphonic arrangements in it. Or put more plainly - it is still identifiable as music.
When the guitars settle down into a groove, they have a quality almost akin to Iron Maiden or Metallica. What is missing is Bruce Dickinson's soaring vocals - instead you get that gutteral screaming sound that makes it difficult to make out what they are saying. This is OK, since about 25% of the time they are singing in Norwegian anyway.
When they aren't singing in Norwegian, you can't understand much through the screaming. A quick reference to the liner notes confirms this is a good thing. I'm not sure if it is that they are writing these songs in another language and they are losing something in the translation, but the lyrics try so hard to have an apocalyptic feel, they overshoot their goal and mostly come off sounding goofy. Here's a sample from the cheerily titled, "For the World To Dictate Our Death":
"Engulfed by the desert
We taste death in the dry heat
The disciples of prophet ablution
Had sworn to let the skeptics bleed
For great are their love for warfare
Henchmen of the disastrous creed."
Um...OK, then. This is one of the better songs on the album, but this is because of the music, not this weird rage fantasy stuff. I prefer my over the top metal lyrics to have a fantastical (think Dio) or historical (think Maiden) quality. Pure anger-talk doesn't really do it for me.
That said, Dimmu Borgir are talented musicians, and it would be a mistake to dismiss their work as simply angry. The songs are well constructed, and viscerally engaging. They just need to lighten up a little. That's why I am going to end this review with this picture I took this morning on my way to work - this was about 7:20 AM, about 300 feet from my office.
The Odyssey decided that it was time for me to get my angry on, I suppose.
Disc 186 is...Death Cult Armageddon
Artist: Dimmu BorgirYear of Release: 2003
What’s Up With The Cover?: Pretty basic. Black, with pentagrams and nasty looking font. The cover to this album is actually just an extra slip of paper put in front of the booklet. The booklet has this apocalyptic "Terminator Future" cover:
If you think this is troubling, you should see some of the pictures inside the booklet. Let's just say Dimmu Borgir is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.How I Came To Know It: My friend Kelly is into black metal/death metal these days, and he brought some over a while back and I liked it, so he bought me this album as a gift.
How It Stacks Up: Dimmu Borgir has been around a long time, and have nine studio albums dating back to 1994. This is the only one I have. I like it fine - I think I prefer another one Kelly has played recently called "In Sorte Diaboli" but not enough to add to the collection. I'm not a Black Metal convert, although I readily admit Dimmu Borgir's talent.
Rating: 3 stars.
Dimmu Borgir is a Norwegian Black Metal band. The name means "Dark Castle" or "Dark Fortress" in Norwegian.
Black Metal is not for everyone. Putting this album on in my car was a lot like getting into a bathtub where the water is too hot. For the first ten minutes or so it was uncomfortable - the auditory equivalent of being scalded. But once you get used to it, it is actually fairly enjoyable.
The energy of this music is undeniable, and it definitely gets the blood pumping. It is an assault on the senses, with a lot of pounding double bass drum and thrash guitar. What sets it apart from other metal close to the genre (like Death Metal, for example) is the melodic, symphonic arrangements in it. Or put more plainly - it is still identifiable as music.
When the guitars settle down into a groove, they have a quality almost akin to Iron Maiden or Metallica. What is missing is Bruce Dickinson's soaring vocals - instead you get that gutteral screaming sound that makes it difficult to make out what they are saying. This is OK, since about 25% of the time they are singing in Norwegian anyway.
When they aren't singing in Norwegian, you can't understand much through the screaming. A quick reference to the liner notes confirms this is a good thing. I'm not sure if it is that they are writing these songs in another language and they are losing something in the translation, but the lyrics try so hard to have an apocalyptic feel, they overshoot their goal and mostly come off sounding goofy. Here's a sample from the cheerily titled, "For the World To Dictate Our Death":
"Engulfed by the desert
We taste death in the dry heat
The disciples of prophet ablution
Had sworn to let the skeptics bleed
For great are their love for warfare
Henchmen of the disastrous creed."
Um...OK, then. This is one of the better songs on the album, but this is because of the music, not this weird rage fantasy stuff. I prefer my over the top metal lyrics to have a fantastical (think Dio) or historical (think Maiden) quality. Pure anger-talk doesn't really do it for me.
That said, Dimmu Borgir are talented musicians, and it would be a mistake to dismiss their work as simply angry. The songs are well constructed, and viscerally engaging. They just need to lighten up a little. That's why I am going to end this review with this picture I took this morning on my way to work - this was about 7:20 AM, about 300 feet from my office.
See, Dimmu Borgir? The world's not such a bad place after all.
Best tracks: Lepers Among Us, For the World To Dictate Our Death, Blood Hunger Doctrine, Cataclysm Children.
2 comments:
I think I will give this one a miss when I upload songs to my mp3 player!
Thanks for including that gorgeous photo - what a peaceful shot.
I just wanted to add - a big plus for Dimmu Borgir for me is their orchestral arrangements i.e. they incorporate an actual orchestra into their sound. And they do it incredibly well - usually when a rock or heavy metal band tries to add an orchestra the results are pretty fucking dire (cough*Metallica*cough). Here, the orchestra adds to the overall impact immeasurably.
I think one of the reasons I love black metal so much is that I love horror, but I find most horror movies disappointing. With bands like Dimmu Borgir, I can just listen to the music and imagine the horrific imagery that movies lack. It's a "Satanic Ritual soundtrack", in other words.
One final thing - black and death metal are two of the few genres today that are still pushing the limits of what is physically possible in music. You listen to the double-kick patterns and think "is this an actual human being playing this?" The answer, in Dimmu Borgir's case at least, is yes. There are some bands that cheat and use MIDI triggers to double, triple or even quadruple each kick hit, and these bands must be relentlessly sought out and exposed for the frauds they are.
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