Nuclear Blast Americ
2007
In Sorte Diaboli
About This Album
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 scrape dreamscapes. The transitions in tunes such as "The Conspiracy Unfolds" and "The Sacrilegious Scorn," the former with its intense blastbeats and ranging power riffs and the latter tune's classically themed melodic invention, are simply seductive as keyboard and snares and toms give way to powerful guitar and bass thrums.
Track List (try tracks 2 and 6)

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