Credits:

Dimmu Borgir

Description:

Dimmu Borgir’s brand of symphonic black metal, industrial rock and near-classical melodic fare has been developing nicely since their beginning in the 1990s. The crew backing Shagrath’s lead vocals — killer guitar by Erkekjetter Silenoz and some wonderfully harmonic backing vocals that are near operatic, or at least influenced by Jon Anderson and Yes — have become a brand in metal. With In Sorte Diaboli, the band has gone the route of Therion and numerous others in creating a concept album about a man who grows up in fear and ignorance and believes in the Christian church, and somehow, after studying for years as a monk, rejects everything and becomes a heretic who runs afoul of the church. In doing so, he understands his fate is at stake. Musically, Dimmu Borgir are unrelentingly brutal and harmonic all at once. Songs meld and blend into one another, becoming a nightmarish brood of shred and