Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Label: Nuclear Blast Records – Released: 27.9.2010

Tracklist:
01. Xibir
02. Born Treacherous
03. Gateways
04. Chess With The Abyss
05. Dimmu Borgir
06. Ritualist
07. The Demiurge Molecule
08. A Jewel Traced Through Coal
09. Renewal
10. Endings And Continuations

Dimmu Borgir is definitely the best, most innovative and stylish black metal band in the world. That’s because they have more success and wider audience than many other Norwegian black metal bands, who aren´t simply as brilliant as Dimmu Borgir is.

However, “Abrahadabra” is not the best album of Dimmu Borgir. Definitely their best two albums, up till today, are “Spiritual Black Dimensions” (1999) and “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia” (2001).

Unfortunately Abrahadabra,  reminds me too much to “Death Cult Armageddon” (2003), which is Dimmu´s worst album after debut ones “För All Tid” (1994) and “Stormblåst” (1996).

However the original Stormblåst had a few brilliant songs like “Alt Lys Er Svunnet Hen” and “Sorgens Kammer”. But Abrahadabra’s monotone sounds, boring structures and tasteless coverart bring it to the same category with “Death Cult Armageddon” (2003) and remastered “Stormblåst” (2005). I must say this isn´t a good sign in Dimmu Borgir´s development, even if  “Is Sorte Diaboli” (2007) was again a little bit better album.

The best parts of Abrahadabra is the orchestra, where Dimmu’s trademark can be heard: Dark, melodic and twisted melodies, where the band can always be recognized. However, the orchestra’s part should be composed more for symphonic black metal, and not for industrial way.

Best songs from Abrahadabra are “Gateways”, “Dimmu Borgir” and “A Jewel Traced Through Coal” where comes out the traditional and better Dimmu Borgir than it has been on recent years. Surprisingly, in this album you can hear some unexpected improvements in guitar parts, even a few simple solos. However, Dimmu´s guitarists, Galder and Silenoz, aren´t real virtuosos, especially the latter one.

Although Silenoz is Dimmu´s another leader with vocalist Shagrath, I sometimes wonder why they have fired the brilliant and remarkable musicians like drummer Nicholas Barker, keyboardist Mustis or guitarist Astennu, who, by the way, is must better guitarist than Galder and Silenoz are together. Is this a power struggle, or what?? For a long time already, it’s known that Silenoz is the biggest musical brake in Dimmu’s development. It would be better if Silenoz, in the future, concentrated only on the lyrics. Just to mention, Mustis, for example, composed much better songs than Silenoz has ever done (e.g. the songs as Progenies of great Apocalypse + Fear and Wonder).

Anyway: Although Abrahadabra, Death Cult Armageddon and remastered Stormblåst aren´t complete bullshit, the sounds in these albums are stuffy and with boring structures. The songs and sounds aren´t at all so brilliant & melodic than they were on Dimmu´s best albums “Spiritual Black Dimensions” and “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia”. Coverarts on these three albums are also very samekind, boring and naive. I hope Dimmu Borgir will return in the future back to the end of 1990´s, abandoning their recent style and start to compose new music that sounds like Dimmu Borgir was at its best times…

My final rating: 7/10