DIMMU BORGIR - Grand Serpent Rising
Nuclear Blast Records
Well there's a lot to unpack here so let's go for it. The last album by this Norwegian Symphonic Black Metal act that I use to like and still own a copy of is 2007's In Sorte Diaboli. I hardly ever listen to it. In fact I believe it was around this time that the band influenced too many copycat acts who just followed their style because they had become mainstream metal.
Obviously if you're a hardcore BM fan then you hated DIMMU BORGIR before 2007 and called em sell outs. Be that as it may when the band released Abrahadabra in 2010 I was like fuck you. To me that was Blackened Power Metal and utter bullshit. That was I wrote DIMMU BORGIR off. I never heard 2018's Eonian nor did I want to.
So here we are many years later and I figured let's check it out. First off a big shocker to me is that only vocalist Shagrath and guitarist Silenoz are still in the band. Everyone else is new. As far as this, the band's eleventh full length goes I'm definitely sitting on a fence figuring it out.
For anyone to say this is a return to form for DIMMU BORGIR I'd say you're an idiot or a liar and maybe both. A return to form would really mean going back to the days of the original Stormblast or Enthrone Darkness Triumphant which I still think is their best album. This return to form is more like In Sorte Diaboli except that the cool sounds are part of the second half of the album.
With the exception of "Ascent" the first portion of this release blows. "As Seen in the Unseen" starts out cool with an atmospheric opening, an aggressive point middle but ends poorly. That seems the be the total theme which predominates this release. Bad keyboard themed atmospheric parts with common guitar riffs. "The Exonerated." is another perfect example of a good song destroyed by Shagrath's insistence on almost Power Metal keyboard back drop.
The bottom line is that this album sucks. I gave it a serious chance and it's another disappointment. Nuff Said!
https://www.nuclearblast.com/de/#gbaid74159
LISTEN HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnR1cRin3Dw
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