Eight years in the crypt and the Norwegian black metal kings emerge dragging thunder, ash, and orchestral nightmares behind them.
There are bands that release albums.
Then there are bands like Dimmu Borgir — a machine built from cathedral fire, corpse paint, and the sound of the apocalypse itself — who don’t so much “drop” a record as they do crack the earth open and let the smoke pour out.
After eight long years lurking in the frozen shadows since Eonian, the Norwegian extreme metal titans have returned with Grand Serpent Rising, and the thing sounds less like a comeback and more like a ritual sacrifice performed inside a collapsing empire.
This is not nostalgia.
This is not a victory lap.
This is a giant black serpent coiling around the throat of modern metal and squeezing until the eyes bulge.
Formed back in 1993 by guitarist Sven ‘Silenoz’ Kopperud and vocalist Stian ‘Shagrath’ Thoresen during Norway’s infamous second-wave black metal explosion, Dimmu Borgir have always operated on their own timeline. While lesser bands vomit out half-baked records every eighteen months to satisfy algorithms and streaming playlists, Dimmu disappear into the mountains and return only when the stars align correctly.
And apparently the stars aligned in Gothenburg.
Recorded with legendary producer Fredrik Nordström — the same mad architect behind Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia and Death Cult Armageddon — Grand Serpent Rising delivers thirteen tracks of symphonic devastation that feel massive in every possible sense. There’s brutality here, sure, but also atmosphere, restraint, melody, and the kind of cinematic scale that makes most “epic” metal bands sound like they’re recording inside a garden shed.
The newly unleashed track As Seen In The Unseen arrives with a cinematic video soaked in dread and grandeur, further proving Dimmu Borgir still understand something many extreme metal bands forget with age:
Darkness should feel dangerous.
Shagrath describes the album as capturing “everything Dimmu Borgir has been and become,” calling it darker, more brutal, yet more melodic and dynamic. And honestly, that’s exactly what this thing feels like — a collision of eras. The frostbitten venom of the early years colliding headfirst into the colossal orchestral machinery they later perfected.
Meanwhile Silenoz talks about revisiting the spirit that shaped the band’s identity while pushing toward rebirth and transcendence. Which sounds dramatic until you actually hear the record and realize dramatic is precisely the point.
This is black metal built like a gothic war film.
Everything burns.
Everything matters.
And somehow, after more than three decades, the fire still sounds alive.
Line-Up
- Shagrath — vocals
- Silenoz — guitars
- Damage — guitars
- Victor Brandt — bass
- Gerlioz — keyboards
- Daray — drums
Grand Serpent Rising is out now, and whether you worship at the altar of old-school black metal or the towering symphonic chaos Dimmu Borgir helped pioneer, this record feels like an event. The kind of release that reminds you why extreme metal still matters when it’s done with conviction, madness, and enough firepower to level mountains.
Grand Serpent Rising is out now — thirteen tracks of towering symphonic destruction from Dimmu Borgir that drag the band back into the darkness with absolute force. Stream the new album here: Grand Serpent Rising
This is the gospel.
I bite crowd Surfers.
Killer.
