Devil's Review : Dimmu Borgir - Abrahadabra

No that's not a picture of future Narnia villains.That's actually a picture of the remaining permanent members of Dimmu Borgir making their fans think that they have gone full cheese. With a silly album title, these costumes, and Vortex and Mustis shown the door could Dimmu Borgir create an epic album again? Let me answer with a frozen and grim "Yessss".More on this after the jump.

I was not prepared for what I was about to hear. None of the symphonic elements are lacking and this is evident with the opening intro entitled "Xibir".The next track "Born Treacherous" actually introduces something that was never on previous releases,groove laden riffs.The next track is the one that was released as the first single and subsequent video "Gateways". This is an excellent track with only one complaint. They have a guest female vocalist Annette from a band called Djerv and she rudely interrupts the flow of the track with some cringe worthy screeching. Fortunately her return near the end of the track is not too bad.

Those few tracks at the beginning are probably the strongest on the cd, though the remaining tracks are no slouch either and actually are very much what Dimmu fans come to expect from this band. Snowy Shaw of Therion/Dimmu/Therion fame does provide cleaner male vocals in place of Vortex in spots on the cd. Is Vortex missed? I really don't think so. But then again I always thought his clean wailing style was overrated to begin with and a few songs on previous works would have been fine without him. As for Mustis, he had some great compositions but whoever they have doing it now is just fine as well.

So bottom line is that I enjoyed this album very much and much more then I was expecting to. It's epic in nature, creepy like albums of old, and has a few surprises in store for those brave enough to get past the ridiculous imagery. Dimmu fans that liked material pre-In Sorte Diaboli should like this. The tr00 black metal fans will continue to ignore and scoff. And that's fine, your bands are boring anyway. I highly recommend people pick this one up even if you're new to the band. Here is the video for Gateways.