Dimmu Borgir - Grand Serpent Rising (Album Review) ^Featured

Dimmu Borgir

Grand Serpent Rising

It's hard to believe it’s been 8 years since Dimmu Borgir’s last album, Eonian. That’s partly because of the alarming acceleration of linear time that we experience with age, and partly because we’re still listening to it regularly. In our mind, it remains fresh, new, and peerless. So impressed were we that, back in 2018, it was one of our albums of the year. Back then, we gushed about “an ornately gothic, macabre collection of morose beauty”, and stated that, “[i]f this is what Dimmu Borgir can do after eight years off, then we’ll happily wait another eight for the follow-up". We’re not claiming any preternatural prescience but if Shagrath & Co., are going to deliver albums of Eonian’s quality in octennial measures, they’ll be worth the wait.

Which brings us nicely to their latest offering: Grand Serpent Rising. Firmly fixed as our number one black metal act, there are butterflies in our stomach and a fluttering of our heart as we press play on the new album. Like any new release from a favourite author or film director, we just don’t want to be disappointed. Hopes and expectations need to be managed.

The opening track, ‘Tridentium’, kicks things off with a slow build, ticking all the boxes we’ve come to expect from Dimmu Borgir, and any pre-listen nerves are settled. ‘Ascent’ is a fierce shred and harks back to their older “pure” black metal days. It soon becomes clear that Grand Serpent Rising is a reaction of sorts to Eonian, which caused discord amongst the black metal community and accusations of selling out. The choral and orchestral elements, though still present, are low in the mix and no longer drive the songwriting.

The mix itself is questionable. While it may receive merit from black metal purists for its intensity, it loses clarity too often. Aspects of the music are buried beneath a mélange of sound. Again, this is something that will be familiar to old-school black metal fans but, given the crispness of the recording and the time invested, it seems wasteful.

Where Eonian felt like a leap forward for Dimmu Borgir, Grand Serpent Rising feels like a step backwards. We can’t shake the feeling that the band have paid too much heed to the unrest among their older fanbase and that a bit more courage in their creativity would have improved things. Instead, we have a retrograde album and a hope that, in 8 years' time, we’ll hear something a bit more progressive from them.