Dimmu Borgir: Vortex (vocals, bass); Shagrath (vocals); Galder, Silenoz (guitar); Mustis (piano, synthesizer); Nick Barker (drums, percussion).

Additional personnel: Abbath (vocals); Charlie Storm (synthesizer, programming).

Producers: Dimmu Borgir, Frederik Nordstrom.

Recorded at Fredman Studio, Gothenburg, Sweden.

DEATH CULT ARMAGEDDON was briefly reissued with a limited edition enhanced bonus disc featuring video footage and five bonus tracks.

Dimmu Borgir: Silenoz (guitar); Nicholas Barker (drums); Vortex (background vocals); Galder, Shagrath, Mustis.

Personnel: Vortex (vocals, bass guitar); Abbath Doom Occulta, Shagrath (vocals); Galder, Erkekjetter Silenoz (guitar); Mustis (grand piano, synthesizer); Charlie Storm (synthesizer).

Additional personnel: Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.

Audio Mixer: Fredrik Nordstr”m .

Recording information: Fredman Studio, Gothenburg, Sweden (03/2003-05/2003).

Photographer: Alf Borjesson.

Unknown Contributor Role: Nicholas Barker.

Arranger: Dimmu Borgir.

Purists may bristle at the notion, but by 2003, Dimmu Borgir had become the ultimate neo-black metal band. With Mayhem and Enslaved exploring the tattered ends of avant-garde experimentation, Emperor and Immortal broken up, Darkthrone still clattering away in the garage, and Cradle of Filth underwhelming everyone with their too-dense-for-its-own-good major-label debut, Damnation and a Day, Dimmu Borgir unleashed the stunningly impressive Death Cult Armageddon. The CD booklet boasts an artist's rendering of a twisted metal machination surrounded by a sea of skulls and bones, which is a perfect analogy for the trajectory of Dimmu's musical vision -- immense, strange, and jutting in all directions, an imposing and powerful monstrosity that's the concoction of a few brilliantly twisted minds. In fact, Death Cult may be the closest-to-perfect amalgamation of the hallowed genres of black, death, thrash, gothic/industrial, and symphonic metal -- heavy on the symphonic, because here the bullet-belted, corpse-painted Norwegians collaborate with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and reap the benefits with savage glee. The orchestra lends overwhelming and full-bodied sonic bombast to "Vredsbyrd," "Eradication Instincts Defined," and "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse," the latter two so vast and epic in scope they seem to spot weld John Williams/Star Wars compositional soundtrack drama to blastbeating black metal nastiness -- and while naysayers claim strings make metal wimpy, here they're seamlessly integrated and lend power and profundity to the arrangements. Elsewhere, Dimmu's songwriting is firing on all cylinders, and there's nary a microsecond of filler on the whole album: the neck-snapping thrash of "Lepers Among Us" and "Cataclysm Children"; the clanging industrial samples and submerged-in-petroleum vocal effects of "Unorthodox Manifesto"; the off-kilter vocal gnashing and tumbling piano during the verses of "Blood Hunger Doctrine." While most stood in awe of Dimmu's previous album, Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, because of its stellar lineup -- vocalist Shagrath, guitarists Silenoz and Galder, bassist/vocalist Vortex, drummer Nicholas Barker, and keyboardist Mustis -- Death Cult Armageddon finds more songwriting credits belonging to Mustis, who lends his hands to the symphony-heavy tracks and may be the band's holy-hell hand grenade hidden among the cloaking personalities of his bandmates. Add in two wonderfully blood-retching "duets" between Shagrath and former Immortal croaker Abbath -- on "Progenies..." and album-closer "Heavenly Perverse" -- and the record represents the most precise, calculated, and consistently devastating sound and fury to emerge from the metal underground in the early 2000s (where it belongs next to Immortal's Sons of Northern Darkness and Emperor's Prometheus in the hellish hall of fame). Death Cult Armageddon finds Dimmu Borgir gloriously fulfilling the potential exuded on Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia and breakthrough release Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, and officially staking claim to the heap of bones and armor known as the Scandinavian black metal scene. [The digipak version of Death Cult Armageddon includes a bonus-track cover of Bathory's "Satan My Master," and the album was released in multiple formats, including an elaborate metal box and a loose-leaf notebook with metal and parchment pages.] ~ John Serba

Purists won't call it black metal, but if one has to choose a sub-genre it'll do. The only other thing you can accurately call it is extreme metal. With DEATH CULT ARMAGEDDON, the Norway based Dimmu Borgir has synthesized the last 20 years of heavy music into one very coherent and terrifying album. Along with Emperor and Cradle of Filth, they have risen to the top of their own dark niche.

Like breaking into a haunted carnival at midnight, DCA assaults you with fear and surprise at every turn. Sound effects and atonal guitar harmonies in "Allegiance" set an evil mood; this is going to be fun, but scary fun. "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse" is the first glimpse of the live orchestra used to flesh out parts handled previously by synthesizers; few extreme bands have incorporated such ensembles so well. Finding beauty in the chaotic darkness is what makes Dimmu exciting. In a return to their roots, Dimmu has gone back to singing in their native Norwegian ("Vredesbyrd"), and it's a gamble that will likely pay off by impressing older fans, while giving newer listeners something different. Looking for extreme melodic metal? Look no further.

CMJ (9/22/03, p.22) - "...The complexity demonstrated on DEATH CULT ARMAGEDDON is sure to make Dimmu the next black metal band to make heads do a 360..."