One of the most ridiculed band in the black metal scene in certainly, without a doubt, the infamous Dimmu Borgir. They seem to be the poster child of everything cringe about black metal: vapid, commercial minded, image over sound theatrics... despite their being worse offenders in the realm of poserdom and usurpation of a genre's identity - Watain and Dark Funeral, to name a few - it always seems to come back to Dimmu Borgir.
Indeed, the name itself has almost become an insult of sorts in the black metal scene... a band will be called "Dimmu-esque" for playing what is essentially metalcore with very superficial black metal elements (high shrieks, distortion, corpsepaint) for plausible deniability. See the modern Gorgoroth debacle.
There is too much truth in those words to present any counter-argument. Except for the fact that there are, once again, worse offenders than Dimmu Borgir who don't get bashed as hard (the Watains, Summonings, Kult ov Azazels and Deafheavens of the genre), it is impossible to argue that post "Stormblast" Dimmu Borgir has been anything else than an unmitigated disaster. For the black metal scene, that is... no doubt that Shagrath and co are perfectly happy to line up their pockets (they are, after are, one of metal's most commercially successful acts, alongside the Metallicas, Maidens and Cannibal Corpses).
And yet, against all odds, for all their garbage output over the years, there was a time when Dimmu Borgir didn't completely suck. Shocking, I know.
For those who know what I'm talking about, you probably already heard of "For All Tid". For those who don't, let's take the time to delve into Dimmu Borgir's controversial but competent debut album.
The year is 1995. Dimmu Borgir hadn't yet "sold out". In fact, the very idea that a black metal band - then an extremely obscure style of music - could "sell out" sounded preposterous, at best. So instead of signing with Nuclear Blast to release garbage like "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant" (an album likely recorded in an afternoon at the studio, if even that), Dimmu Borgir did the next best thing: they actually got to work and produced "For All Tid", a solid folk/pagan black metal release.
The music is slightly similar to that of Satyricon, Neraines, Graveland and early Behemoth. Of course, there are many Burzum influences here too. I could go on to describe this album at length, but it has already been cover by another writer here. The historical context is more important than the content of "For All Tid". And more important, still, is to temper the accusations of Dimmu Borgir being the "cause" of black metal's downfall into commercial goth rock mallcore mediocrity. They were a contributing factor, yes, but all the blame cannot be placed at their feet... especially considering that they at least had ONE good album, when other bands have ZERO (cough, Dark Funeral, cough).
The average black metal fan today has not heard the formative works of the genre: Phantom, Immortal, Mayhem, Burzum, Neraines, Enslaved, Darkthrone, Graveland and Warkvlt when they were making essential, complex, beautiful music. All they've heard are the newcomers, the posers, both of the blatantly commercial Cradle of Filth/Wataincore variety, and the scene trash "three note war metal" type of band.
In that regard, it's important to set the record straight on Dimmu Borgir's singular positive contribution to black metal: "For All Tid".
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