Dimmu Borgir

This Blending black metal's most brutal tendencies, the melancholic beauty of opera, and industrial metal's production techniques, Dimmu Borgir carved a niche in the metal world as one of the most savage and creative acts to hail from the Norwegian scene. The group first started in 1993, when members Shagrath (vocals), Erkekjetter Silenoz (guitar), and Tjodalv (guitar and drums) came together to join the emerging metal scene. Although some groups like Emperor and Mayhem had already been making noise for a while, this next generation of groups was the first to directly take their influence from their efforts. They drafted bassist Brynjard Tristan and keyboardist Stian Aarstad into the fold and began their career with a 7" single, "Inn I Evighetens Morke."

Dimmu Borgir's brand of symphonic black metal, industrial rock and near-classical melodic fare has been developing nicely since their beginning in the 1990s. The crew backing Shagrath's lead vocals -- killer guitars by Hellhammer and Erkekjetter Silenoz and some wonderfully harmonic backing vocals that are near operatic, or at least influenced by Jon Anderson and Yes -- have become a brand in metal.

Track listing

1.Serpentine Offering
2.Chosen Legacy
3.Conspiracy Unfolds
4.Sacrilegious Scorn
5.Fallen Arises
6.Heretic Hammer
7.Sinister Awakening
8.Fundamental Alienation
9.Invaluable Darkness
10.Foreshadowing Furnace
11.Serpentine Offering
12.Making of the Album with Dimmu Borgir
13.Making of the Video: "The Sepentine Offering"
14.Photogallery

"Hybrid Stigmata"

The apparition of two faces in disgust
Invisible but yet so clear
Reflections seen by a fugitive
Trying to escape the looking glass
Blood runs from open wounds of false flesh
The one in front of the mirror exceeds the image
Eager to leave further but chained still
To crumble into such nothingness
A despairing fate, for your lies
To pretend is the lunatic's legacy
Privileged to bolt the nails of heresy
Born lifeless into a world of coma
As the chronic sufferer trapped in paradise lost
Missing insinuations of what life was meant to be
Angels and demons, a march man's bewildering hosts

[chorus:]
The charlatans and deceivers walk the line in prejudice
The narrow slits the veins in search for the crown
Profound impatience makes the blind struggle in stupidity
The paradox of the daily prayer, diffidence is Confiteor
Phenomena of ironies, cast the litany aside
How intelligible, blessed be the forgetful
Holding the banner high, unrestrained
Slowly abandoning the surface in contempt
Still in costumes to please the ways of living
Witnessing the details of defilement, intoxicating
Make sure to be pleased with the ways of your death
For in days of reckoning and when the twilight torn is ticking
Elysium is halfway and as an answer to the plea
You're destined to yield fragments of Hell in return
Leave unnoticed with the perfect conscience
With the strength of the spiritual eye
Spirits of the token unchained and free
Recover from the philanthropic macabre frenzy
The pale dove grins, black at heart ready to flee
Demon to some, angel to others

SAMPLE MUSIC