Last summer I made a pilgrimage to Neseblod Records in Oslo, the shop that used to be Helvete, and walked out with a special-shape limited-edition CD of Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, one of my all-time favorite albums. So when word came that DIMMU BORGIR were finally breaking an eight-year silence since Eonian, I was curious and more than a little excited to hear where the band would go next.
A lot has changed in the meantime. Galder is no longer in the fold, having turned his focus back to Old Man's Child, which leaves the band's creative core where it started: founders Silenoz and Shagrath. Grand Serpent Rising is a long record, thirteen tracks stretching past the hour mark, and it carries the weight of that runtime for better and worse.
The album is wrapped in a pair of strong bookend compositions. The intro, "Tridentium," opens with rain and strings before guitars, drums, and narrative vocals push through, reading like a deliberate build-up for everything that follows. "Ascent" arrives right after as a welcome blast of power, the kind of song that pays off the slow build before it. It's unmistakably DIMMU BORGIR, a solid track with a juicy guitar solo planted right in the middle.
For me the clear standout is "As Seen in the Unseen." I almost wish the band had led with it instead of the first single. At nearly seven minutes it's the longest thing here, opening on an atmospheric, haunting passage and packing in everything I love about this band. It's also the most organically assembled song on the record. Where some of the other tracks feel like ideas and pieces stitched together, this one simply flows.
A couple of other moments stuck with me. "Repository of Divine Transmutation" begins with a lovely acoustic guitar intro that lends it a baroque quality, then hands the melody over to distorted guitars as the verse kicks in, with the orchestration present but kept subtle. "Slik Minnes en Alkymist" is the odd one out, and I mean that as a compliment. It opens on a catchy heavy/power metal melody and then keeps changing course, moving through piano, slow atmospheric passages, and fast blast beats. It's also one of several songs that mark a welcome return to Norwegian-language lyrics.
Not everything lands. "Ulvgjeld & Blodsodel" was the first single, and honestly it left me with low expectations. It isn't the strongest pick to get people excited about the album as a whole. Toward the back end, some of the songs start to blend together. They feel repetitive, they don't stand out, and they're hard to recall once the album is over.
What's interesting is how restrained the whole thing feels by DIMMU BORGIR standards. This isn't the over-the-top orchestral spectacle of some of their previous work, and there are no electronic elements to speak of. The outro, "Gjǫll," closes things out as a nice atmospheric instrumental, a fitting counterpart to the intro.
Grand Serpent Rising is a good album. It has real highlights and a clear sense of where these two want to take the band now that it's down to the founders. Yet it isn't peak DIMMU BORGIR. The length works against it, and the weaker stretches keep it from greatness. But of course I pre-ordered, and the limited-edition 2LP/CD of Grand Serpent Rising is already in my hands.
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