Thursday, April 19, 2007

BIG 'N' BLACK

If Hollywood soundtrack composer John Williams formed a black-metal band, it would sound like Dimmu Borgir. For years, these Norwegians have inspired worship and scorn in more or less equal measure by combining black metal's raw guitar fury with pomptastic orchestral backing -- sometimes, as on 2001's Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia and 2003's Death Cult Armageddon, by real orchestras.

But on the band's latest disc, In Sorte Diaboli, the symphonic parts are played on keyboards by Øyvind "Mustis" Mustaparta. "The Prague Orchestra [heard on DCA] wasn't expensive at all compared to what you'd think. So it wasn't for budget reasons," says guitarist and primary songwriter Sven "Silenoz" Kopperud. "We thought that we'd been able to recreate most of the orchestral feeling live with just keyboards. And in the studio, if you have the right technology, there's no problem to create symphonic feeling." [Read the rest here.]

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