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Dimmu Borgir - "Death Cult Armageddon"

Dimmu Borgir – “Death Cult Armageddon”

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Dimmu Borgir - "Death Cult Armageddon"

Dimmu Borgir – “Death Cult Armageddon”

I struggle calling this album “Death Cult Armageddon” black metal. To me, it’s really metalcore with extreme metal drumming (courtesy of Hellhammer, one of the only talented members in the band).

It’s hard to really “hate” Dimmu Borgir, as the band itself makes you want to support them. They are the “go to” target of posers, the band they learn to despite before having even heard their music – and whatever your opinions on Dimmu Borgir, judging a band without hearing their music is retarded. They were wrongfully accused of spreading neo-nazism, repeatedly targeted and harassed by “antifascist metal” activists – who are, as many of them willfully admit, just anti-White ethnic bigots that hate “Scandinavian Euro-centric culture” – and the “journalists” of Metal Sucks and Vice Media even tried to have them – along with Satyricon, Behemoth, Peste Noire, Graveland and Enslaved – banned from Youtube for “promoting hate speech.”

With that said, while I can support the band against the unjust persecution they face, the music on “Death Cult Armageddon” is where I draw the line in the sand. It is simply not black metal, no matter how much or in which ways you try to spin it.

Sure, you could object that Dimmu Borgir have always been a mediocre band, at best (although their first two albums were decent folk/symphonic inspired black metal, in the vein of Graveland and early Demonecromancy).

“Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” is where the band started flirting with unabashed mallcore poserdom, with “Spiritual Black Dimensions” seeing them essentially become Gorgoroth 2.0. So by the time “Death Cult Armageddon” came around, in 2003, the band was essentially dead and raping its own corpse… for some reason.

The music Dimmu Borgir makes sounds very stale. Everything sounds the same, from “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” onward, all the way to the disastrous “Eonian” – the final nail in the coffin for the band – and barely progresses at all.

The guitar riffs are not only stale, they are misleading too. Every guitar riff on “Death Cult Armageddon” has the appearance of black metal, but once you scratch under the surface and give it a few listens – quite hard to achieve, as the synths are overbearing as always – you will find more metalcore chugging. At its worse, “Death Cult Armageddon” sounds like 2000s nu metal. Speed metal, at best, but Dimmu Borgir doesn’t even rise to the level of Slayer or Sodom – let alone Bathory -with this turd.

“Death Cult Armageddon” is more appropriately titled “Dimmu Borgir’s Suicide by Mallcore.” Avoid this shitty 2000s MTV2 release. Replace with “Khranial,” “Under a Funeral Moon” or “Verminlust” for actual black metal. With real atmosphere, not keyboard James Horner soap opera would-be soundtracks.

Dimmu Borgir called "Nazis" by anti-racist activists.

Dimmu Borgir Called “Nazis” – Again?

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Dimmu Borgir called "Nazis" by anti-racist activists.

Dimmu Borgir called “Nazis” by anti-racist activists.

Dimmu Borgir, a once sort-of-respectable if generic black metal band turned into a metalcore clown act – and turned literally into Nightwish with “Eonian” – has once again come under fire for “racism” and “neo-Nazism,” accusations that have plagued the band’s career since the days of “For All Tid” and “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant.”

This time, the band was banned from playing at a San Fransisco live show after the city council received “pressure” from anti-racist organisations, one blogger reports. Source: Dimmu Borgir Banned for “Racism” in California. The San Fransisco City paper also confirmed that the band was dropped “at the last minute” after the city refused to ensure the security of concert goers.

This isn’t the first time black metal bands, and Scandinavian black metal bands in particular, have been attacked as “racist,” “fascist” and “neo-Nazi” by anti-racist activists. This is a well documented trend that goes back to the days of user “antifa666” on Metalious, and of Metal Archives moderators sending their users info to “anti-hate” organisations.

In fact, “antifa666” was one of the first to attack Dimmu Borgir and call them “neo-Nazis” in his particularly virulent post. He also went on to attack other black metal bands like Graveland, Mayhem, Darkthrone, and even Behemoth, and advocated for his followers to “bring baseball bats” to Marduk concerts, which promptly got him banned.

This time, it appears the band is called “Nazi” and “white supremacist” not for the “slitting the throat of Black people” comment, but instead because they once played live with Dissection, a band that also gets accused of “white supremacy” and other anti-white slurs – see the Watain debacle.

At any rate, it’s unlikely that Dimmu Borgir will be permitted to play live in California in the near future, as “there’s a fine line” between “being against religion and […] anti-Semitism,” as one of such “anti-racist” activist points out.

There’s a fine line that they are dancing on here, being against religion and Christianity as a whole is one thing, but when you get into… anti-Semitism, that’s kind of neo nazi – that’s why we can’t have that here.

The logic being:

(1) it’s okay to be against religion and Christianity
(2) but anti-Semitism is “kind of neo nazi”
(3) we can’t have “that” – i.e. “kind of neo nazi” – here

Now imagine if a Christian organisation, or a public Christian persona such as Joel Osteen, had threatened a black metal band with mass violence and terrorism (bomb threats) on the grounds that “we can’t have anti-Christianity here” as that’s “kind of commie.”

Dimmu Borgir playing live. Not going to happen again any time soon.

Dimmu Borgir playing live. Not going to happen again any time soon.

Not only would black metal fans have retaliated by suing the perpetrators and likely the venue as well on the grounds of free speech – since this happened in th US of A, I’m assuming using a First Amendment defense – but the ENTIRETY of the black metal scene would have publicly supported Dimmu Borgir against these “religious fanatics” – which they are.

Was there such a reaction, in this case? Not at all.

Why? Is it because they are Jewish? Who knows, but the user “antifa666” makes it very clear in his Satyricon is Racist hit piece that while he hates “all the racist and misogynist black metal fans,” he also reserves a good deal of his hate for Arabs, or “anti-semitic Islamo-Nazi terrorists of Hamas” as he calls them.

He even concludes, with the utmost gravity and the quasi-religious conviction of a suicide bomber on a mission.

As you can see, white supremacist bigotry goes hand in hand with fundamentalist Islamic terrorism.

I don’t know about that, but my experience tells me that anti-white Jewish supremacist bigotry – the type these “anti-racist except for Israeli” constantly engage in – goes hand in hand with fundamentalist censorship, social media lynching campaigns and even threats of violence and terrorism.

And something tells me that I’m not the only one to have noticed from where all this anti-white hate is originating.

Dimmu Borgir - "Eonian"

Dimmu Borgir – “Eonian”

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Dimmu Borgir - "Eonian"

Dimmu Borgir – “Eonian”

Looking at the band photoshoot made for the promotion of this “Eonian” album should say it all. Too much Nine Inch Nails, Dethklok, Rammstein, Behemoth and Evanescence have influenced this once generic quasi-black metal band to become “avant-garde.” Of course, this means “sounds like shit.”

Samples, programmed drums (instead of Hellhammer, what a let-down), and annoying vocal processing all contribute to the debauched character of this “Eonian” release – also, most of it sounds like indie video game music. Then you throw in the fact that song structure is non-existent alongside the easily made out lyrics that read like gibberish – lines about “the potion of black earthed blood is the sludge of consciousness,” “I am not your superhero” and “We need to die, and die again” make cringe worthy appearances – and this easily becomes the worst thing No Colours records has ever churned out… wait, they aren’t on No Colours anymore… they’re on… oh, right, Nuclear Blast. Yeah, that explains… stuff.

So they are just copying the older brothers Behemoth, like that time they copied Emperor on “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant.” Makes sense. Still shit, though.

Beginning with a song that goes from synth-laden pop-black – think Cradle of Filth, Enslaved or Ulver – to cleanly arpeggiated “Voivod chords” – like a more technical version of a Korn verse – to an “anthemic” AC/DC styled “hey! hey! hey!” stomping stadium rock riff sets the stage for how the remainder of this brain bleaching disaster “Eonian” will unfold.

There are a few openly deathcore pieces scattered throughout the “Eonian” album, but mostly it’s disingenuous “experimental” crap that sounds like leftover riffs from their previous album – those Waking the Cadaver styled typical tremolo picked random note abortions – sandwiched between random samples, carnival noise synth/pedal effects, etc. Too many nu metal chug-alongs, like modern Deicide, with too few actual riffs to carry the songs that last, on average, a little over five (long) minutes. Even a Machine Head styled wigger riff makes an out of place appearance on “Alpha Aeon Omega” (track 9) for reasons left best undisclosed.

The vocals at best sound like the shouts from the first Satyricon album made more “hardcore” like a nu metal/angst rock band. All in all, “Eonian” is a bunch of leftover feces culled from various industrial rock, dance, and occasionally/allegedly “black metal” albums stitched together into no order of importance. Maybe not as bad as Watain, but you should still avoid this turd at all costs. Replace with “Angel of Disease” or “Verminlust.”

Dimmu Borgir - "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant"

Dimmu Borgir – “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”

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Dimmu Borgir - "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant"

Dimmu Borgir – “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”

As the Dimmu Borgir shit-show continues to change their sound to every trend imaginable in order to sell more merch to impressionable kids who are eager for “satanic black metal” that sounds no different than Miley Cyrus’ latest (s)hit, the band’s third effort “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” shows Dimmu Borgir as they attempt to fuse the goth rock of “Stormblast” with even more commercial pop rock oriented songwriting.

I was very disappointed with this release. Despite its polished faggothic keyboards and production, “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” is basically the album that opened the gates for the Watain and Deafheaven spearheaded take-over of black metal, in an attempt to turn a once promising genre into another mercantile “trend”, no different from emo, punk or goth.

Don’t even bother with “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” as it manages to be even more cheesy and plastic than even “Stormblast”.

The orchestration on this release is the typical “Stormblast” routine with useless symphonic elements being the full backbone, and the “riffs” – if there even are any to be found on this record – taking the backseat.

When you listen to the ever so basic guitar and bass lines on “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”, it becomes very clear that Dimmu Borgir is either lacking in talent, motivation, or both.

And the vocals… what the fuck. Sometimes Shagrath seems to attempt black metal vocals and fail. Other times, it’s just meaningless metalcore sounding screams. The vocals are beyond shitty on this release and really fucking boring. Generic in every way.

“Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” sounds so much like a Cradle of Filth album with its overuse of keyboard orchestration. The rhythm, delivery and even pitch that Shagrath uses for his vocals – going from low grunts to higher wannabe black metal vocals – also tend to confirm that assessment. This album proves Dimmu Borgir’s interest lies solely in sucking the corporate cock as much as they can. I mean, at least old Dimmu Borgir used to get compared to Satyricon. It was still meant as an insult, but it wasn’t until this abortion that the Cradle of Filfth comparisons started to “pop” up.

The whole “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” album has no diversity or anything of interest. I do not recommend wasting money on this effete emo turd. Go get yourself Neraines’ “Yggdrasil” instead.