I write this with great sadness seeing as how Dimmu is in a 3-way tie as my favorite band of all time. I'm sorry, the new album EONIAN just isn't very good.
i wasn't terribly impressed with the album art either
It's been 7 years since they released an album. I was expecting and hoping for more. Perhaps the creative tank is empty but I think their best work is behind them. I say this because of the 10 tracks on this album at least 6 of them are indistinguishable from one another.
For those of you unfamiliar with Dimmu Borgir they are a melodic black metal group from Norway. Prior to the album before this one they made a massive announcement that they were firing their bass player who also supplied all the clean vocals which was a big part of their act. His name was ICS Vortex and i would say that his involvement in the songs was a large part of what made the band unique.
I suspect (again this is just my opinion) that Vortex and Shagrath (the only remaining singer) butted heads and also appeared to not really even get along on stage. I think Shagrath didn't like Vortex "stealing his thunder" either.
After his departure they replaced his part of the clean vocals with guest singers on tracks and later, with a complete choir, which kind of ensures they are going to have a difficult time playing live. The last 2 live shows I saw of theirs they had a complete choir with them - which is nice but almost certainly a lot more expensive than the one dude you couldn't get along with that also played an instrument and had fantastic stage presence. I think Vortex was a ginger - so now we know why he was truly let go.
On a side note ICS Vortex has his own albums now and they are also pretty bad. I think they needed eachother.
Eonian utilizes a lot of effects and keyboards as well as a full orchestra, which stays interesting for a while but the main problem with this album is that nothing really stands out. The two videos they already made pretty much embody what the entire album sounds like and i guess if I had to choose the best song I would go with "Council of Wolves and Snakes"
a very solid tune, except for the weird tribal bits
If you actually listen to the song I want you to take notice of the guitar work. You hear how he is strumming (very fast) on a single string to set the tone of the song? That's pretty cool sounding right? I agree.
However, herein lies the problem: he does that same thing on like 6 other tracks on the same album. Furthermore, he hasn't really ever done that in albums past... it's as though he was in the studio one day and was like
ooh, this sounds pretty sweet! I'm going to do this on every single song
I don't know really what to say: It isn't St. Anger bad or anything. It's just not as special as I have come to expect from them and if you look online at reviews, even websites that routinely give high marks to pretty much everyone are giving EONIAN 3.0 / 5.0 .
I think the band's new direction isn't a good one - or at least not as good as it was before. It involves entirely too many people and while that is fun for an epic show or two (like when Metallica joined up with an orchestra for just one show) having it be what your entire band is about doesn't really work..... especially live because the guest singers are almost always not even there.
Here is a throwback to the era when Vortex was still in the band and in my opinion when Dimmu Borgir was best. Warning-there is anti-religious imagery in some of the vid clips.
some of these songs are just.... emotional
So overall, just in case you can't tell. I am disappointed in the new album after waiting 7 years for it. What a letdown.
I give EONIAN 2.5 / 5.0
What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Did i spell something wrong?