No matter how deep the band hide their chugging and staccato riffing under layers of digital gloss, the riffing here isn’t anything but mediocre and repetitious. Strip this band of its overblown synthesizers and orchestra, and what you have left is a middling, subpar melodic death/thrash band with an abundance of swagger but no idea to speak of. The riffing has reverted back to the chugging of “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” and Nick Barker’s acrobatic drumwork excepted - this is a dire regression on all fronts. I concede that everything sounds great, and the record is probably the heaviest thing the band had done up to that point – but that doesn’t make it good. Inexplicably this record has fans for all the wrong reasons. Yet despite all these facets working against the band at every turn this record is the go-to album for many in the band’s younger and more impressionable segment of this band’s already pimply-faced tween demographic. The second half is inconsistent to say the least with tolerable ideas and concepts only partially completed and some outright terrible ventures into industrial territory. The album is mostly redeemed by its surprisingly strong first half, and outside of 4 songs this album is a retread of grounds already extensively covered on “Spiritual Black Dimensions”. No amount of orchestration, synthesizers and digitally processed vocals could hide that the band had made no progress worth mentioning since their previous recording. Where Dimmu Borgir’s songwriting was thin and lacking here deterioriation has firmly set in. If the description sounds confused, that’s exactly what this record is.ĭespite having a far more versatile drummer, a new guitarist and the benefit of actual orchestration “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia” just sounds better, the playing is faster, yet the drought of new ideas is more apparent now than ever. A halfway hybrid between symphonic - and industrial metal backed up by a philharmonic orchestra. It is the third of a five-album cycle wherein the band used a three-word album title. Armed with a new drummer, a new guitarist and a somewhat-new clean vocalist/bassist Dimmu Borgir released this abomination. Yes, “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia” is that album, the one were the artist completely loses the plot and goes off the deep end. The masks had come off and ugliness was revealed, the foundation was starting to crack and there was no other option but to jump ship and try to salvage what was left of what they had created. The personel changes had left the band in shambles in more ways than one, the creative juices weren’t flowing as strong as they once were and a band already short on ideas was struggling to find new ones to fill an album. On its third record for Nuclear Blast, Dimmu Borgir was at a critical juncture in its career.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |