Originally posted on metal-archives.com:
One step forward... a hundred back. - 10%
To open this up, a little background. I love Dimmu Borgir. Their early stuff is completely unmatched in my opinion. I got into them through the great Enthrone Darkness Triumphant... and shortly later Stormblast 1996. Now, Stormblast '96 didn't sit that well with me at first. I had only just gotten into black metal and the mix (which I thought was weak at the time), just completely put me off. I couldn't listen to it, cause of the mix.
Flash forward a couple years later, and I rediscover that lost gem. I had become more immersed in the genre by this time. I had heard most of the more... abrasive acts, like Ildjarn, Bone Awl, etc. So this time, it seemed pretty tame to me. I mean, it sounds thin for sure, but so do the countless other classics spanning the genre. Listening to it again, for the first time in ages, it was like a revelation: How could I have been put off by such a stunning, breathtaking symphony of cold melodicism? I don't care what you say about the album, it had the atmosphere overflowing, seeping from every orifice. I felt shameful, and sort of stupid, for so quickly discounting it.
Flash forward yet again, to six or seven months ago. I see the reviews on this site for the 2005 rerecording of this album; I see some dissent, but still considerable praise. I see people praising it for sounding more heavy and full, for transposing to drop D tuning, for Hellhammer being on drums. So I got curious and checked it out. After all, if Hellhammer's on it, it can't be bad, right? Wrong. I had only gotten through half the album and I was already horrified. Now, I'm no black metal elitist... but I know when a band has utterly ruined their old songs when I hear it.
Stormblast 2005 HAS NO atmosphere. The original had it in heaps, and that was the main attraction of the album, was the thin, cold, stripped-down sound. The instruments sounded thin and powerless, and that was the allure. It conjures up images of a dying man in a blizzard. The album was simple, and the keyboards were UNOBTRUSIVE.
Instead they have sacrificed that atmosphere, in favor of tons of flashy gimmicks; the first of them being overly cheesy, melodramatic, theatrical keyboards, that are so overbearing and annoying here, it's not even funny. Not only do they overpower and almost choke the music, but with their theatric, orchestral sound, make the album sound like a fucking film soundtrack.
Then there's Hellhammer... a great drummer that is just so horribly out of place here. He plays with a lot of speed, a lot of double-bass, and fantastic fills here. But that's the problem; Stormblast '96 was not an album that supported such drum show-offery. As was stated above, it was a simple album that relied on the atmosphere, on the music itself, not on any one member's performance, to attract attention. Not only that but the drums are obviously triggered, they have that same level of clickiness as on In Sorte Diaboli, which sucks. If they wanted the drums to sound so mechanical they may as well have used a machine.
And the guitars... "heavy-fied" for what seems like the mindless blackcore kids. Not only did they tune to drop D, but they beefed up the tone a hundredfold. I don't mind the occasional heavy guitar tone in black metal, but this ticks me off for two reasons: One, because this album didn't need it; as I said, the original sounded thin and powerless. It evoked a feeling of bleakness, of utter hopelessness. That was part of it's charm. To take that away, is to take away what makes the album so great. And two, because not only did they make the guitars more beefy and chuggy, they "complemented" it with a glossy, crystal-clear Nuclear Blast mix. It's like a paradox: They wanted this remake to sound heavier, to sound crushing, but as it is, it's just utterly sterile, and flat.
Dimmu Borgir took a piece of art (Stormblast '96), and completely ruined it. They took a black metal masterpiece, and in an effort to "improve" it, they added a bunch of flashy gimmicks, and made it sound glossy and sterile. In short, they completely went against what the genre of black metal is all about, the "less-is-more" ideology. The two conflict with each other... and as a result, Stormblast 2005 is a flawed (read: BAD) piece of art. Come to think of it, all of Dimmu Borgir's late output, is bad art, but that's besides the point.
Stormblast 2005 is not a black metal album. It's a pop-metal album... and if you disagree, you are sorrily mistaken.
