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Rating: “Through me you go into the City of Woe
Through me you go into Eternal Pain
Through me you go among the Lost People
...
Abandon all hope, you who enter here”
Dante Alighieri (Comedy, Inferno, Canto III)
And if you really have decided to cross the threshold of this shadow world, if indeed the thought of what awaits does not disturb you, well, I invite you to look out the window and carefully observe the joyful world around you, because afterward, you may view it with different eyes.
But now, please, close your eyes, the light is fading...
Perfect in their pianistic purity, the notes of “Mourning Palace” unfold like the petals of a malefic flower, introducing a majestic Shagrath, who slashes through the melody with a deep, powerful growl, which quiets only to highlight a jagged keyboard passage resonating with ice, immediately killed by the overwhelming return of the voice, accompanied by a disturbing echo, a morbid spasm from hell, which intensifies subsequent embodying whispers of all demons infesting the shadow of night, on a now colder, piercing keyboard. An obsessive bass invades the melodic scheme, leading it to increase in speed, culminating in a hammering drum where the previously experimented vocal torture reappears, this time anxious, irrepressible... the track fades out without warning.
A dark, pulsing choir rises in the silence, a moment before the tortured “Spellbound (By The Devil)” explodes with its hypnotic force, where a voice made of nightmare and darkness, a scream from the inferno, pervades the senses, subjugating them to its evil power. Once again, the keyboard chills the oppressive melody with a hallucinatory interlude, prevailing over the voice that immediately shatters the complex construction to insert a raw, pulsating, crude element, embellished by prolonged growls capable of waking the dead. The song seems destined to disappear into a horrible spiral when Aarstad intervenes, extinguishing everything else with a haunting, uneasy scale, after which growl and melody gain a different, decadent hue, fading into a fading end...
As the last reverberations of this magnificent track dissolve into the air, do not think the worst has passed.
The fast, pressing, melodically violent riff that opens “In Death’s Embrace” immerses the listener into complete darkness. Shagrath alternates growl and scream in a heavy, angry yet frozen verse, as if etched in ice, evolving into an extensive, complex, excellent keyboard passage.
The second phase accelerates further. The instrumental performance is divine. Guitar and bass work in perfect symbiosis tied by an Argentine, vibrant Aarstad. The drums weave a diabolic veil around the structure. Above all Shagrath’s voice rages, sowing Death and intoning hymns of damnation, which in the final bars take the form of a distinctive, scratching scream, like a breath that extinguishes the song.
In fourth position “Relinquishment Of Spirit And Flesh” is raw, almost coarse. Violent riffs, amalgamated with a cruel voice form a furious, brutal track.
“The Night Masquerade” possesses a baroque charm. An enveloping melody transports the mind into a theater of horror masks, whose curtain is blood-red, and everything is sucked into a never-ending vortex of darkness, made of perversion and delirium.
A thin shroud of anguish drapes “Entrance,” where a soft keyboard and a sharp, brutal voice create anxious and dark contrasts. An excellent prelude to "Master Of Disharmony," obsessive and angry, embellished by a profound, echoing growl. The melody reduces to a subdued, unsettling background. Perfect also is “A Succubus In Rapture” where the melody is structured on a keyboard with almost epic sounds, which magnificently dictate with funeral solos and spectral voice, a scream that conjoins piercing coldness and Nordic violence.
And if you now look around you will notice hundreds of eyes staring at you from dark recesses where the light dares not tread... darkness falls faster now... Enthrone Darkness Triumphant...
“We’re forever captured by the embrace of Death!”
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Mourning Palace (05:13)
Daylight has finally reached it's end
As evenfall strikes into the sky
Far away in the dark crimson moonlight
Sickening souls cry out in pain
Whispering voices summoning screams
Waiting for Satan to bless their sins
Blackhearted angels fallen from grace
Possessed by the search for utter darkness
Hear the cries from the Mourning Palace
Feel the gloom of restless spirits
Hear the screams from the Mouring Palace
Feel the doom of haunting chants
Eternal is their lives in misery
Eternal is their lives in grief
Abandoned in a void of nothingness
A chain of anger, a fetter of despair
In this garden of depraved beings
This unsacred place of helpless ones
Satan blessed the creatures
Inswathed them in endless night
Whispering voices, summoning screams
Waiting for Satan to bless their sins
Blackhearted angels fallen from grace
Possessed by the search for utter darkness
04 Relinquishment of Spirit and Flesh (05:33)
King of tempests and storms
Lord of innumerable figures and forms
Blessed with Thy cold I am
as I upon the shoulders of mine
bear the burden of Thine
Once I got touched by a fire from beyond
an invitation of darkness of which I colud not resist
Caressed by the feathers of the fallen
I took the fate in my hand
My raging Commander
My constant Shade
My soul's Persecutor
My eternal Divinity
Revealing Thy powers in visions and dreams
Onvoking Your magic at night
Honored I am to mission Thy word
within a creed is sworn of majestic might
An infernal allegiance in which I pay my share
An unholy awakening inside of which I intend to bear
Beholding Thy commotion
I entreat You with devotion
I subsume Your might with strength
I will carry on with You as my guardian
against the lambs of the light
Possessed by the true god of earth I am
Possessed for eternity
06 Tormentor of Christian Souls (05:39)
I could drag you to my chambers
and strip you naked in darkness
I could pull out your fingernails one by one
and rape you till you find no hope
I could rip your guts out
and let you watch me
sacrifice your unborn child
I could leave you to starve
and even bring you to total silence
For once
For I find no pleasure in your physical pain
I want your christian soul to crumble
Your fucking soul
When I have seen your church go up in flames
and you are weeping I will laugh
When I have seen you mourn over loved ones
I will feel bliss when your mortal souls is in ruins
I will grin in the shadows
for that gives me pleasure
Tormenting a christian soul
07 Entrance (04:48)
Soul(s) on departure six six six
onward unto another existence
A trip far beyond all pleasant dreams
A voyage through desolation sights
Inner transformation
Subconscious flight
In the glance fields of fires
In the distance meadows of mists
Where minds being enshrouded in complete night
The fading of love, life and light
Wandering an endless journey
Dead within a trance
Entering a lost dominion soulless and free
Visiting a foreign place but yet so known
Another dimension opens for me to see
Heaven sure ain't made for me to be
Heaven sure ain't made for me to be
Soul(s) on arrival six six six
one short step from unhallowed ground
The ground of A Kingdom Come
Dead spirits communion
Unorthodox profane void
Gardens, temples, palaces
I have seen them all
In search for insanity, sanity slowly drowns - In trance
08 Master of Disharmony (04:16)
Master of disharmony
welcome my tainted soul
Take me from the hordes of the living
into the blessed darkness
Master of disharmony
take my impure flesh
Lead me into the path of temptation
save me from cowardness
Save me from cowardness
Master of sin
take my cursed heart
Bring me where I can find salvation
dor I am the danmed
Master of death
take my pitiful life
I am enslaved
I shall never forget the pain
Master of sin
take my cursed heart
Bring me where I can find salvation
for I am the danmed
Master of death
take my pitiful life
I am enslaved
I shall never forget the pain
10 A Succubus in Rapture (06:00)
Illness and plagues, torture and blight
Is what she brings
Mocking holy standards, deceiving feeble fools
Is what she loves
Granted with powers, gifted with magic
Watching the world through raven eyes
Damned woman mischievous whore
Heretic princess
Devil's own
Her seductive elegance
Excites your weak flesh
Her diabolical beauty
Enchants your bewildered mind
You damn woman
You mischievous whore
You heretic princess
You are Devil's own
A serenade made out of black magic
She has learned to set souls afire
And makes sure that you never
Will leave it's trance
Her diabolical beauty
Enchants your bewildered mind
11 Raabjørn speiler Draugheimens skodde (05:02)
Langt der borte I m�rket
Gjennom tretopper der m�nelys driver
Langt der borte I all t�ke
Inn gjennom min sjel den sorte angst river
P� de mosegrodde steiner de seg viser
N�r nattem�rket har senket seg over
Ekkoene fra deres grufulle jamring
Endel st� du kan h�re
I horisonten langt vekk
Skimtes den sigende skodde
Horder av ild rider m�nelyset I flokk
Ved daggry de samles ved en bortgjemt odde
Den iskalde snoen
Har kommet
Denne gang
I evig fokk
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By wwwhatemoornet
Dimmu did both, mixing them and creating something unique and unrepeatable.
It is an album that changed symphonic black metal and gave birth to thousands of carbon copies.
