Fair, thanks.

DB is an incredibly talented and unique a band despite all the badmouthing...

As much as Dimmu Borgir has dissapointed me the last 17 years, I'm looking forward to this and yet again I'm giving them a fair chance. I don't think they are able to make something like Enthrone again but at least they can make some catchy songs.
They did make some good songs even after 2000, like: Avmaktslave and the rerecording of Dødsferd from Stormblåst, parts of Vredesbyrd and Allehelgens død, the ending of Cataclysm Children from DCA, the last minute or so of Kings of the Carnival Creation, The beginning of Serpentine offering, the instrumental from the same album and parts of the Dimmu Borgir-song. I always suspect they were capable of making something great, but they held back because of current trends.

Edit - Threads merged.

That's not your decision to make.

Threads merged (courtesy Zodi).

I'm OK with that, thanks.

Hopefully they don't have the awful clean vocals this time around or, at the very least, hire someone decent.
I absolutely hated the voice of Vortex and was relieved when he got fired, I never felt like his voice fit and it ruined the listening experience for me.
If they feel they just have to have clean vocals, they should hire a female, someone like Elisabeth Toriser could contribute a lot.

Seriously?! The "become your own congregation" part of Progenies of the Great Apocalypse is one of my favorite moments in metal. I thought he had some great moments on Spiritual Black Dimensions as well.

How can one not like "The Insight And The Catharsis"?!

I liked Vortex's voice, but I didn't like Agnete Kjølsrud that much. She sounded like a witch on Abrahadabra and not in a good way.

I still can't fathom how anyone could think that obnoxious squawking could be a good idea, let alone a fit replacement fo Vortex's soaring cleans. Even more so when they had two infinitely more capable alternatives in Garm and Snowy Shaw handy.

Vortex was the best thing about “newer” dimmu borgir. Anyway not expecting much from their new album , it will probably be a stuffed with symphonic parts album trying to hide their inability to write good songs for the last 15 years or so. God , their previous one was terrible in this regard.

Ok guys so the new single ‘Interdimensional Summit’ has leaked on metal tracker today, just wondered what your thoughts were on this first new song by them in almost 8 years? Do you really think its worth this long a wait? Wonder if the album will be worth all our time after so long since Abrahadabra? My personal thoughts I quite like the song, but it seems they overdid the choir singing a bit and left alot of Shagrath’s vocals out. Some nice guitar melodies later on though. I am guessing this may be one of the weakest songs on the album. Its enjoyable enough though and i like almost all eras of the band.

Discussion on the new single and album is here - https://www.metal-archives.com/board/vi ... 1&t=120308

That main orchestra/keyboard melody is annoying. The choral vocal sections were cool, though, and that one restrained lead around halfway through. If this is the best they've got it doesn't look good.

Edit - Previous video got taken down for copyright reasons.

So Dimmu Borgir play power metal now? I guess I'm OK with that.

There's basically nothing black metal about the song at all, but I liked it a lot more than I do almost all of Abrahadabra. It's definitely the most energetic, pulsating type of song they've done in a few albums. I hope the rest of the album is more on the black metal side of things, but this was a damn good first track.

I liked it but I’d feel better knowing there was more black metal to the rest of this album. The choirs make me think of Sisters of Mercy.

Well that was a weak load of crap. How do they plan to perform that chorus on a live setting, with a backing track?

Dimmu Borgir has always been a backing track band. I saw them circa 2001 on a tour with Lamb Of God, The Haunted, and Cannibal Corpse, and it was patently obvious then that there was pre-recorded enhancement, mainly in the keyboards, but so much so that I was convinced that most of the vocals were also on the backing track. And this was long before this Milli Vanilli-esque approach to "live" shows became the norm in metal. Dimmu Borgir are pioneers in "live" show fakery.

Which is fine by me, because this is one of the single most inauthentic bands of all time, and having a partially faked live show suits these guys very well. These guys are way too "entertainment" focused, so it would make sense that their show sacrifices performance integrity for purpose of being "flawless" every night.

The music video is up and I also updated the OP with new information about the album.

Well, the music video was awful, but I have yet to see a black metal music video that was not awful!

The song itself... It's not half bad, but it sounds like a cut from the latest Sirenia album. Catchy string arrangements, kick ass riffs, soaring choirs singing very sing-along-y melody lines during the chorus. I like it, but it's a very far cry from Dimmu Borgir's past efforts, let alone black metal.

The parts in the middle and end with the lead guitar work just didn't do it for me.

I agree! I've never been a fan of Dimmu. I've always considered them to be one of the worst mainstream "black metal" bands, but now that they dropped all pretences with this incredibly campy and catchy pop metal song I'm actually starting to like them.

The song sounds like a lovechild of Therion and Nightwish with harsh vocals. Interesting nonetheless. Wondering what the rest of the album will sound like.

Wow, that song is as embarrassing as Galder's goofy expressions during the video.

Absolutely terrible and completely sad. What a horrible track. I vomit at the thought of what the rest of this wretched album will sound like.

Reading these comments, I had hoped this song would be like the new Machine Head and be so terrible it was actually funny and better than the band's old material... nope, this DB song is incredibly dull and lame. Just goofy. Listen to those vocals in the beginning; just so awful. The whole thing is just a lot of corny, jaunty synth/keyboard riffs with evil imagery - kind of like a parody of what metal is.

This shit is painfully uncool

Thing is, Dimmu seems to have come to a point of self-realization. They know they are goofy, they know they are campy. So instead of adding forced extremity to the goofiness, they just ran with it and didn't even bother adding boring cookie cutter blastbeats and evilness! I guess you could compare it to Twilight Force in a way. I know you don't like those guys either (last album sucks) but as long as it's catchy I'm all in with the cheese.

Yeah I get you. I think it's just bad even at being "so bad it's good." A lot of it just sounded dull and mushy to me like a lot of their other work unfortunately.

Wow, you were not kidding, this fucking sucks!!

This is neither Dimmu Borgir nor black metal. Dislike from me.

They just released another new song from the album! Get it while it's hot!

Hm. Well, I like it better than the lead single off of Abrahadabra. I agree that it's not much of a black metal song, though that's not really all that new for Dimmu Borgir--not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's okay. It's not bad. I guess I'm just not...taken to it. I'll keep my eye out for the next song or two, but it may simply be that I grew out of them after 2010--and have remained grown out of them.

Yeah, not into this even a little bit. Damn, I'm disappointed.

"Gateways" as a song was much better. The music video was way cringier than this, though.

I hope I don't end up retroactively appreciating Abrahadabra more, but this might just do it... Hey, I never thought it would happen with Death Cult Armageddon.

What a horrific song that new single is. Way too sympho, way too little black. The clean vocals are also truly atrocious.

... and kluseba's contrarian hyperbole right on schedule.

I've been a Dimmu fan for many years and it is no secret that they have missed the mark more than a couple of times in their career, but wow. This song is just bad. I tried to get into a few of the choral parts but even those were lacking. Plus, I'm sorry, but Shaggy is just useless as a vocalist these days. All he does is that damn Abbath/Inquisition style crocodile speak and I can't stand it. He used to have such a bestial, guttural shriek on their earlier material but these days he is just totally ineffective. I will never understand why some black metal vocalists think that type of froggy talk singing sounds good.

I realize that extreme vocals take their toll over time, but I just can't with him.