Album review: Dimmu Borgir – Grand Serpent Rising

Never knowingly light on grandiosity, Dimmu Borgir have ensured their first full-length in eight years is jam-packed with pomp and circumstance. While the tag of symphonic black metal still fits, it feels a slightly reductive description of the wild sonic visions that comprise Grand Serpent Rising. Lead songwriters, guitarist Silenoz and vocalist Shagrath, have thrown everything at the wall this time round – and found that most of it sticks.

Following cinematic scene-setter Tridentium, the breakneck riffing and frenzied blastbeats of Ascent are a thrilling rush. As Seen In The Unseen is more challenging, switching between grace, aggression and grandeur. Interestingly, the orchestration that’s become a Dimmu signature is dialled back throughout, used only when required. On the striking Ulvgjeld & Blodsodel, everything works perfectly, whereas tinkling piano and ominous choral vocals leave The Qryptfarer dangling over an abyss of gothic campness.

Silenoz has said that the album’s titular serpent represents renewal, its skin-shedding allowing for growth and evolution. It’s an idea which resonates through lyrics which reach for transformation and transcendence, particularly on the alternately doomy and dreamy Repository Of Divine Transmutation.

The only real issue with Grand Serpent Rising is that there is so much of it. Sure, it’s entirely fitting that a band with such maximalist tendencies in their composition should unleash a 70-minute epic. But by the album’s closing stretch, the relentless exposure to constant blackened proggery starts to feel like overload. Closer Gjǫll does feature what appear to be owl samples, though, so that’s nice.

Given the lengthy gestation that has come to characterise Dimmu releases, Grand Serpent Rising could end up their only studio album of the 2020s, perhaps allowing time to absorb its surplus of ideas. Even so, some judicious pruning would have left it standing even grander.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Cradle Of Filth, Behemoth, Satyricon

Grand Serpent Rising is out now via Nuclear Blast