Dimmu Borgir – Grand Serpent Rising
Release Date: 22nd May 2026
Label: Nuclear Blast
Order/Stream
Genre: Symphonic Black Metal
FFO: Emperor, Cradle of Filth, Arcturus.
Review By: Jeff Finch
After eight years of waiting (because a covers album never counts), Dimmu Borgir is back, and with Grand Serpent Rising, listeners are treated to a standard modern day Dimmu record and what its contents are expected to be: atmosphere, scale, and enough darkness to remind people why this band mattered so much in the first place. It doesn’t completely recapture the spectacular feeling of Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia or Death Cult Armageddon, but it also doesn’t sound like a band phoning it in as they coast through the twilight of their career: the boys still bring energy.
From an initial impression perspective, Ulvgjeld & Blodsodel was the right choice for a lead single because it immediately dispels the notion that they were going even softer after Eonian. The song has a bitter, nasty edge people have been asking for while still sounding grandiose and cinematic in a way few bands can. Rather than just existing on the top layer of sound, covering the riffs but little else, the orchestration feels integral to the music, Shagrath’s sounds genuinely vicious in spots instead of overly polished.
Creatively, Ascent acts as the song providing audiences with the clearest insight into the present day process: slower, more atmospheric, one of the stronger examples of their modern style hitting well without reliance on copying the past. The chorus sticks, the keyboards are layered and sound excellent, and it’s rife with that patented Dimmu Borgir “the world is ending” anxiety. That said, it’s also one of the songs where the album’s biggest issue shows up: it’s hard to sound dangerous when the production is perfectly polished.
In a way, that’s the story of the whole album. When the riffs bite and the symphonic elements enhance the songs instead of overpowering them, Grand Serpent Rising sounds massive, it IS massive, the beefy riffs are punishing and listeners feel that stank face from early Dimmu releases creeping up. But there are stretches where things blur together a bit because the band leans so heavily into formula. Nothing here is outright bad, far from it, the band seemingly incapable of writing a bad track, but not every song leaves a lasting impression either. Great but forgettable is where some of these tracks end up: objectively excellent compositions that do nothing to stand out.
I do think the return to working with Fredrik Nordström helped a lot, though. There’s more grit and weight here than on Eonian, and even the cleaner, more melodic sections still feel grounded in black metal instead of drifting into overly theatrical territory.
Having said all of this, Grand Serpent Rising is a strong late-career album from a band that could’ve easily become a parody of themselves were they a lesser group of musicians. Alas, they aren’t and they didn’t. While not their masterpiece, and unlikely to convert people who already threw in the towel years ago, the strong performances on the vast majority of this album have provided longtime fans with an album well worth the wait.
(4 / 5)
