Mass Darkness: New Music From Dimmu Borgir and Ihsahn!

Dimmu Borgir – Eonian:

So I could go the expected route and start off this review of the new Dimmu Borgir album Eonian by leveling a flurry of criticism at them for taking eight years to release something new. I did it with Therion recently, and in cases like theirs and of course the much discussed Wintersun the criticism can be warranted from a fan’s point of view. But other times its worth pausing to consider just how helpful a long hiatus can be for an artist’s career, not just for the obvious financial reasons of artificially building up interest for lucrative festival appearances and tour offers, but in allowing the creative process to reset and take stock. I know for me there was a feeling that the band had wandered off into the wilderness for their past two releases (something I actually felt started on 2003’s Death Cult Armageddon, despite its many fun moments). Their fascination with heavily orchestrated productions kinda spiraled out of control, and although I think the song “Dimmu Borgir” from 2010’s Abrahadabra was a triumph of dark majesty, the rest of the album was one heck of an overcooked chicken dinner. Eight years has given the band a new perspective on just how they should apply orchestral elements to their sound (judiciously is the answer) and has allowed them to rediscover some of the charm of the signature sonic elements of their classic Enthrone Darkness Triumphant album.

While Eonian isn’t quite a return to old school Dimmu Borgir, it hearkens to that spirit in their more streamlined musical approach, particularly in bringing back that old “Mourning Palace” keyboard approach —- you know what I’m talking about, the church organ gone evil. I hear it in the opening strains of the awesome “Interdimensional Summit”, as lean and pointed a single as they’ve ever released, boasting an earworm of a choral vocal hook amidst a bed of sharp, jumpy rhythmic shifts. Galder’s solo here is as gorgeous and memorable as something off a Therion album, and maybe its just my memory getting the better of me, but I can’t recall him doing something quite like it before. Another standout is “Aetheric”, a microcosm of the band’s better merging of symphonic bombast with streamlined leanness. Keyboards pair with lead guitars to create a spellbinding, otherworldly melody while waves of orchestra burst in to raise the tension and give us a little adrenaline kick. There’s a very Satyricon-esque riff at work throughout most of this tune as well, an unexpected though welcome surprise, one that I think actually works well with Dimmu’s overall approach (is dabbling in black n’ roll a potential way for them to lean next time?). The gloriously epic passage here is the 2:25-4:30 stretch, a lengthy but note perfect masterclass in the potential for symphonic metal’s emotional power. From just these two tracks alone, we’re getting work that could be placed alongside the handful of other truly great moments they’ve managed in a lengthy career. And before you think that’s a lot of hyperbole over two songs, the rest of the album holds up just as well, including the much discussed experimental nature of “Council of Wolves and Snakes”, although being a track that took me a few listens to really unlock and understand, I’ve been addicted to its slower, dreamscape invoking passage from the 2:45 mark onwards.

What’s striking about this album overall is just how much of a pure joy its been to listen to, something I can only best describe as being a fun listening experience. Its a playful record, both aware of when its invoking old Dimmu in pointed moments and slyly sliding in something unexpected when you aren’t ready for it. They bring back that aforementioned black n’ roll riff to “Lightbringer”, but segue it into a clever mystical keyboard vs tremolo riff sequence, and Shagrath narrates with vocals that haven’t aged a day, full of fierce bite and crisp enunciation. I also think “I Am Sovereign” is one of the more inventive moments on the album, veering from an urgent, regal march built around dizzying orchestral fragments that swirl like fevered dervishes that descend into a primitive thick riffed stop/start punctuation mark. I particularly enjoyed the lyrics on this one, a sort of reverse meditative musing on knowledge and understanding, very cosmic in the way its stated yet using personal language, a tricky thing to do. The band saves their biggest orchestral blast for “Alpha Aeon Omega”, a battering ram of a track, full of rapid, punishing percussion under gushing waves of symphonic swirl and color. Silenoz has notably stated that this time around the symphonic parts were more symphonic, and the black metal parts sounded more black metal, and I think he’s right —- essentially he’s suggesting there’s more definition between the two. That was a lesson hard learned I think from their past few albums where perhaps even the band themselves started to lose track of what kind of song structures they had hidden underneath those walls of noise. What Eonian succeeds in doing is simplifying the merger of these two worlds of sound, getting back to basics in essence (you shouldn’t go into this album expecting the band to reinvent the wheel, they’re doing enough by reinventing themselves).

I’m a little surprised that many others aren’t seeing it this way, the album is getting mixed reviews across the board, but then again a band this well known is never going to please everyone, and its been so long since we’ve had new Dimmu Borgir that I suspect most writers/reviewers/ fans don’t even know what they want from a new album by them. That’s the other side of the coin in staying away from new music for so long, that an audience can become disconnected with the band’s overall artistic milieu. Most folks simply aren’t going back and listening to the band’s catalog in preparation for hearing the new album, or revisiting the last album to see where they left off —- and I’m not suggesting that anyone should have (or even that I did… I did not by the way). But it does leave one with only their memories and vague, fleeting impressions of what Dimmu should sound like in their mind’s ear, so I’ve taken the criticism of this album with a huge grain of pink Himalayan salt. One review complained that the album sounded like it had been written over eight years, and that every song seemed so different than the rest that time was the only way that diversity could be explained (is that a criticism even?). Others simply stated that the band was up to their usual tricks of overblown symphonic bombast, opinions that can be immediately discarded since we know that’s just objectively not true. Some even criticized the album for sounding too happy (because apparently major keys in metal equal happiness —- didn’t know that, thanks guys!). Ignore all of the reviews panning this album, give it more time if it hasn’t gelled with you yet, its definitely loaded with some ‘immediate’ moments but its largely built on finesse and detail. Its the most fun I’ve had listening to a Dimmu album since Enthrone Darkness Triumphant and I don’t even blanch at discussing them side by side.

Ihsahn – Àmr:

If relatively more straightforward, traditionally structured black metal like Dimmu’s is like a dark, bitter beer, then Ihsahn’s more nuanced, progressive approach to the style is more like wine. That’s a terrible, awful comparison, trite and unhelpful overall, but maybe its worth throwing out here now for the few of you who are uninitiated to the solo career of the Emperor brain trust. Knowing personally a few craft beer connoisseurs and a wine expert who could likely give the sommelier test a go, I don’t want to tick anyone off, but wine is generally viewed as something more sophisticated. And having that mindset going into an album like Àmr will help you ready yourself to the odd nature of Ihsahn’s electronic bleeps and blops, his erratic time signatures, and his deconstruction of prototypical song structures. I’ve had an up and down time with his solo works, but I really enjoyed 2016’s relatively linear Arktis., particularly its excellent year end list making single “Mass Darkness”. This new album seems to continue in that spirit, much to my relief, although this time the heaviness and riffs take a backseat to clean vocal melodies, something that really is unexpected given Ihsahn’s publicly stated anxieties about his skill as a pure singer. He’s pushing himself vocally on this album like he’s never done before, his voice at times reminding me of early years Mikael Akerfeldt. Of course his black metal vocals are also present, sounding as distinctive in their ash coated blackened rasp as ever, the opening track “Lend Me The Eyes Of Millennia” being a fairly representative calling card for his overall solo style. Its a furious song, menacing in tone and surreal due to its separation of time signatures via different instruments where dirge strings, tremolo riff passages, and Ihsahn’s bleak vocals are each operating at their own tempos.

Yet the heart of Àmr comes out on “Arcana Imperii” where we get treated to Ihsahn’s most convincingly well sung clean vocal to date, arriving in the chorus complete with syrupy harmonies and little embellishments on repeated phrases. Yes I know thats the kind of thing singers do all the time, which is all the more reason why its so striking when its friggin Ihsahn doing it. The music in these sequences is largely devoid of riffing, Ihsahn opting for an openness and spacing between notes, the ambient keyboard work filling in textural gaps. There’s a noticeable Leprous influence on “Sámr”, in its deliberate rhythmic shuffle but also in the airplane takeoff clean vocal he unleashes for the refrain, sounding as lithe and elegant as his brother-in-law Einar. I get a jazzy feel from this cut, something that reminds me of “Evidence” from Faith No More’s King For A Day record (well, if only in shades musically speaking), and its one of those subtle cuts that soon becomes an earworm that lingers long after the album finishes playing. It was on “One Less Enemy” where I started to take notice of drummer Tobias Ørnes Andersen’s amazing work here, and really all over the album; he plays with a progressive ear towards jazzy fills and slightly off-beat patterns, even his decisions on cymbal timing are intriguing. What a bizarre track that one is as well, built largely on a keyboard sound motif that I could only describe as something that could come from a theremin.

We get an excellent groove based riff on “In Rites Of Passage”, the album’s other overly black metal laden cut, this time with Ihsahn directly layering clean vocals atop his grim ones. I thought the very UK electronica instrumental tinges midway through were interesting bits of texture simply because they don’t seem all that out of place on an album that is constantly shifting, pulsing, and undulating in ways that metal albums typically don’t. And “Marble Soul” is an example of how despite Ihsahn having made a career out of steering clear of A-B-A-B pop songwriting structures, he is now all these albums later willing to appropriate that structure on a whim to serve a musical idea. This is a catchy track, still unsettling in its abrasive black metal parts, but that’s one smooth, sing-songy chorus (it would find its way to me in the grocery store of all places while I was roaming the aisles listening to a podcast). This is a head space album, one of those records you just put on and absorb without casting judgement as you listen —- its supposed to fill a room the way the best ambient electronic music can, and indeed it shares similarities in palette to that stuff. The details start to surface over time, but for them to appear you have to kind of mentally surrender in a way that we don’t ever do for typical metal records. I keep thinking back to that Bell Witch album from late last year, how it might have unlocked a part of my music listening brain that was previously blocked at times. Maybe a couple years ago I would have had a hard time with this album, impatient for something to happen (right away!). Now I feel almost at peace with the abstract nature of this stuff… that in itself is a trippy feeling.