Dimmu Borgir adds depth, nuance to black metal with orchestra, choir

"If you think about it," Galder begins. "A choir is the perfect thing to have for a black-metal band."

Well, let's think about it then.

What characterizes black metal?

Snarling vocals suggestive of Satan getting a tooth pulled. Formula One-fast guitars. Relentless, needle-in-the-red drumming with lots of wrist-spraining blast beats. Anti-Christian lyrics as dark as a solar eclipse.

In total, the music tends to be evocative of a barren, frostbitten landscape.

And so where does the choir part fit in, guy?

Well, for bands like Dimmu Borgir, in which Galder plays guitar, there's also a sweeping, symphonic edge to the group's equally majestic and malevolent repertoire.

Since forming in Oslo, Norway, in the early '90s, Dimmu Borgir seemingly has strived to bridge the gap between the epic-scope of Wagnerian-style classical music and the seething intensity of obsidian black metal.

The two have plenty in common: a fondness for pomp and bombast, an emphasis on instrumental ostentation and the tendency to elevate complexity over concision.

On Dimmu Borgir's latest disc, and ninth overall, "Abrahadabra," the band employs a 100-piece orchestra, along with the aforementioned choir, to add still more depth and nuance to the already elaborate tunes.

"We really wanted to make this album a bit more epic than we did before," Galder says through a Norwegian accent. "Even after 20 listens, there's still some stuff that you will miss. Even I'm like, 'Oh, I forgot about that.' There's just so much stuff going on."

The result is an album with layer after layer of torque and texture, with muscular melodic guitars and frontman Shagrath's evil croak buttressed with cello, violin and touches of resonant, clean vocals.

It all sounds like the score to some sinister late-night horror flick.

"It's the atmosphere," Galder says, outlining some of the shared traits between black metal and classical music. "If you've heard 'The Omen' soundtrack, it kind of sounds black metal because of the feeling it creates. It's the same with black metal, creating certain atmospheres in the music. It's just dealing with those dark tones."

When it comes to this style of music, those dark tones have a real life dimension.

The Norwegian black-metal scene became infamous two decades ago when members of bands like Mayhem and Burzum were implicated in murders and church burnings.

Dimmu Borgir never was directly associated with the more infamous activities of the Norwegian black-metal underground back in the day.

They've long been the most mainstream face of the genre, its leading gateway act, and the only black-metal band to ever play the main stage of the annual summer metal package tour "Ozzfest," which propelled their 2003 opus, "Death Cult Armageddon" to sales of more than 100,000 copies, making it the biggest ever release of its kind.

These days, they come across as pretty laid back dudes.

Hanging in Atlanta before a show later that night, Galder is amiable and chatty, pondering a visit to the Coca-Cola factory in town.

He says he wasn't always this way, however, and though he's never claimed to have set fire to any sacred buildings, he doesn't disavow any flames either.

"There's some unfortunate things that happened, but also, in many ways, it helped the music," he notes of all the controversy surrounding the early '90s Norwegian black-metal community. "If you played in a Norwegian black-metal band, you had to be caught up in it in some way or the other. At that time, we weren't against it, so to speak, because we were a part of that environment. But everyone grows up. We're a bit more mellow now and not as extreme as we used to be, but we're still very attached to those roots. It will always be a part of us."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.