Dimmu Borgir at Liquidroom, October 25th 2018

I don’t mind a bit of cheese in metal, but is it really cheese, though? Honestly speaking the air-fist-pumping, the horns, the “hey!…hey!…hey!…” at shows are things that I enjoy watching but don’t feel comfortable joining in. These along with stage banter in the vein of “Tokyo, are you having fun!?” are elements that tip the scale towards cheese, no question.

I would argue that a metal concert is larger than the sum of each of those parts. The energy and the sheer volume of sound are what make these experiences unique. This show was a perfect example of it. 

Sigh started the procedures with a solid half an hour set that opened with Purgatorium. “I… live… you… die!…” is the infectious chant from the song. Sigh is one of those bands that rely a bit heavily on the accentuated monosyllables, they use them for almost every song, but they work to get the crowd going. It’s a band that never disappoints, there’s a reason why they’re the go-to opening act for major extreme metal shows in Tokyo. For this set Dr. Mikannibal wore a white outfit with butterfly wings that ended up soaked in blood coming from a chalice she used to pour it onto herself, lead vocalist Mirai Kawashima wore a priest robe. The level of theatrics in this performance were higher than normal. The musicianship was top notch as usual, with You Oshima’s mind-blowing guitar solos and Kawashima’s brief keyboard interludes. The energy escalated with each song and climaxed at the end.

After a 25 minutes wait the lights dimmed and Dimmu Borgir walked on stage with the ominous sounds from their intro tape blasting through the venue sound system. The audience witnessed the first instance of a ritual they repeated for almost each song. With their backs turned to the audience they will turn to face them as the first guitar power chord of a song will hit.

They opened with the first song from their latest album Eonian: The Unveiling. Maybe the word ritual is not too off the mark, because Shagrath “blessed” the crowd with inverted crosses hand gestures as he got hold of the mic to sing the opening lines, “Become through earned and granted liberation / Rise above the secrecy and silent deception”. His voice is not as powerful as it used to and at some points he was obviously using some recorded assistance, but even though an impression of exhaustion came across in his delivery, he can still command a crowd. I like that side motion he does holding the mic stand while the guitar players are riffing.

But getting too hung up on visual imagery could be a mistake when evaluating a band like Dimmu Borgir. On that is what the cheese accusations are based upon. Beyond the choreographed moves and wardrobe choices (hoods on, hoods off), there’s a band that along Emperor and Gehenna was one of the first to introduce keyboards to the black metal sound, to challenge the genre’s orthodoxy by polishing their sound with ambitious high production values, allowing a wider palette that includes full orchestras, clean singing and choirs.

I wish the clean singing were delivered live, a proper ICS Vortex replacement would’ve taken things to another dimension. Yet the musicianship was more than effective. Silenoz and Galder locked in a sweet groove in instrumental passages like the one at the end of I Am Sovereign, one of the best moments of the show, if you ask me. Daray’s unrelenting drumming and the towering presence of new bassist Victor Brandt on stage (the first time he stepped to the front I thought it was a demon), were also key elements. Speaking of keys, let’s not forget that Dimmu has contributed some of the best keyboard riffs in metal. We got to hear Gerlioz on synthesizers delivering two of the top ones back to back in the final encore. I’m talking about the one-two punch of Progenies of the Great Apocalypse and Mourning Palace.

It all ended with these two gems from their discography, closing an 80 minute show with a promise: “we will return…” The concert was a showcase of their latest underrated album Eonian, they played 5 songs out of it. The rest were handpicked tunes from the best of their catalogue. Rite of Passage played through the speakers as the audience left the venue. On my way out I kept thinking about one of Shagrath’s statements delivered from the stage. He might have a point. It might sound cheesy, but he said:  “Dimmu Borgir is true Norwegian black metal”. 

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