Dimmu Borgir
Abrahadabra
Nuclear Blast

So, nine albums into their career and Norwegian black metal titans Dimmu Borgir are back with undoubtedly the biggest album of their careers. Despite suffering a seemingly endless run of line-up changes, the core members of the black metal heavyweights have remained solid and, in doing so, have really upped the ante for the competition.

Symphonic and bombastic, the base elements of the Dimmu Borgir are here in all the grandeur for everyone to see. The difference this time is that this is the sound of a band who are ready to take on the world. To describe the material on Abrahadabra as massive sounding would be doing the album and the band a huge injustice because, as opener Born Treacherous shows, there really is no limit to the size of this band. Enormous sounding symphonic effects battle with the mammoth grooves and the huge hook of a chorus to create a sound as dramatic and gargantuan as anything the black metal scene has heard. Gateways and Ritualist are more route one fury while Chess With The Abyss and A Jewel Traced Through The Coal see the theatrical effects rearing their heads again. With a top notch production job only going to enhance the epic feel of the whole album while retaining a pristine level of clarity when Borgir really let rip (Renewal for example), it has to be said that Abrahadabra is the complete package.

While fans of the genre will argue the black metal crown has slipped from Dimmu’s grasp over recent releases, there will be no doubting that the bombastic, groove laden tones of Abrahadabra has most certainly put them back on track and if the UK’s own purveyors of black metal, Cradle Of Filth, can match this, we could be in for one hell of a war.

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Review by Mark Rigsby