Nuclear Blast Americ
2003
Death Cult Armageddon
About This Album
Purists may bristle at the notion, but by 2003, Dimmu Borgir had become the ultimate neo-black metal band. With Mayhem and Enslaved exploring the tattered ends of avant-garde experimentation, Emperor and Immortal broken up, Darkthrone still clattering away in the garage, and Cradle of Filth underwhelming everyone with their too-dense-for-its-own-good major-label debut, Damnation and a Day, Dimmu Borgir unleashed the stunningly impressive Death Cult Armageddon. The CD booklet boasts an artist's rendering of a twisted metal machination surrounded by a sea of skulls and bones, which is a perfect analogy for the trajectory of Dimmu's musical vision -- immense, strange, and jutting in all directions, an imposing and powerful monstrosity that's the concoction of a few brilliantly twisted minds. In fact, Death Cult may be the closest-to-perfect amalgamation of the hallowed genres of black, death, thrash, gothic/industrial, and symphonic metal -- heavy on the symphonic, because here the bullet-belted, corpse-painted Norwegians collaborate with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and reap the benefits with savage glee. The orchestra lends overwhelming and full-bodied sonic bombast to "Vredsbyrd," "Eradication Instincts Defined," and "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse," the latter two so vast and epic in scope they seem to spot weld John Williams/Star Wars compositional soundtrack drama to blastbeating black metal nastiness -- and while naysayers claim strings make metal wimpy, here they're seamlessly integrated and lend power and profundity to the arrangements.
Track List (try tracks 1,2 and 3)

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