Dimmu Borgir – Death Cult Armageddon (2003)

October 11, 2020

The battle rages on and on! The battle being, of course, Dimmu’s thrashing black metal and all of its symphonic bombast. Death Cult Armageddon was not my first taste of Dimmu but it was the first full length album that I ever bought by them, I think randomly staring out at me in Poole’s HMV (alongside Impaled Nazarene’s Death Comes In 26 Carefully Selected Pieces).

I remember always been shocked by how polished this album was. Even as a big fan of Cradle Of Filth as a teenager, the polish and enormous orchestral pomp of this record stood out to me. Admittedly, there are a few stand out tracks that stick with me to this day, but I wasn’t a massive fan of the thrashy angle taken here. I felt that more intense black metal elements would work better alongside the orchestral elements, but of course I was able to see how Death Cult Armageddon was the next logical step after Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia.