Enthrone Darkness Triumphant - Dimmu Borgir

This album, from 1997, was Norwegian symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir's commercial breakthrough, and probably the first truly commerical symphonic black metal album! This was also the first Dimmu Borgir album to be released through Nuclear Blast, a record label that could offer the band real marketing and distribution power. The album entered the German charts at number 75, and it stayed in the charts in Finland for 20 weeks. This is the first fully Dimmu Borgir album where all the lyrics are written in English. In all ways an international commercial breakthrough for the band! The sound of this album is a micture of influnces. The core of symphonic ...  Read the complete review

The final album of what could be accurately classed as Dimmu Borgir's first era, 'Enthrone Darkness Triumphant' starts to move towards the commercial metal direction of their later works (not least with the introduction of English lyrics), but retains enough of the spellbinding majesty of the previous releases. With clearer production that really brings out the guitars and drums, this is more approachable and also less distinctive than the heavily keyboard-soaked 'Stormblåst,' though Stian Aarstad's keys are still the most impressive element, despite being relegated to a secondary player behind the generic riffs at many points. Relying more on standard black ...  Read the complete review