Dimmu Borgir — As Seen in the Unseen (Official Video)
Eight years of silence, then Grand Serpent Rising: an hour of symphonic black metal recorded with Fredrik Nordström, with Norwegian-language songs for the first time since Stormblåst MMV. The empire files its comeback. This video is the proof of life.
Eight years is a long silence for an empire. Grand Serpent Rising landed on 22 May through Nuclear Blast, Dimmu Borgir’s first album since 2018, and it arrived like the band never doubted anyone would wait: thirteen tracks, nearly an hour, recorded in Gothenburg with Fredrik Nordström behind the desk.
As Seen in the Unseen is the album-cut video, and it shows what the comeback actually sounds like. Not a reinvention. A recalibration. The orchestration is still enormous, but it serves the riffs instead of burying them, which is the eternal Dimmu balancing act and the reason people argue about this band at festival campsites across Europe.
The detail that matters most to me sits elsewhere on the record: for the first time since Stormblåst MMV in 2005, there are songs in Norwegian again. The single Ulvgjeld & Blodsodel digs into heritage and bloodline in the band’s own language. After two decades of English-language grandeur, hearing Dimmu Borgir sound Norwegian again is quietly the biggest statement on the album. The whole Dutch and Gelderland wave we keep covering made native-language black metal normal again. Now even the biggest symphonic act in the genre is coming home to it.
Listen to this: Dimmu Borgir - Grand Serpent Rising