Dimmu Borgir

Dimmu Borgir
Origins	Norway
Year(s) active	666-Present
Genre(s)	Alternative Black Dark Industrial Medieval Nu Progressive Death Brutal Celtic Antichristian Doom Extreme Power Speed Cyber Shagrath Vampire Funeral Viking Gothic Heavy Hard Symphonic Thrash Tribal Rogue War Puritanic Euphoric Misanthropic Metal
Labels	No Wiggers Records (early), Nuclear Blast (now)
Members	Shagrath Silenoz Galder Gerlioz Cyrus Daray
Former members	{{{former members}}}

Dimmu Borgir, is a self-proclaimed Norwegian "alternative black dark industrial medieval nu progressive death brutal celtic anti-Christian doom extreme power speed cyber shagrath vampire haturistic funeral gothic viking heavy sadistic hard symphonic thrash masochistic tribal rogue war puritanic euphoric misanthropic" metal band from Oslo, Norway.

The band was originally formed by Shagrath and Silenoz in 1988 as a parody band whose early demos consisted mainly of ambiance and the sound of bestial sodomy. Their sound has remained fairly consistant since.

Dimmu Borgir was originally known as “The Dimmu Borgirs”, however, Nuclear Blast Records forced Shagrath to drop the “The-” prefix and the plural because it wouldn’t sell as well in the American alternative clothing store, Hot Topic.

Controversy

Selling out

Dimmu Borgir have been cited as one of the first major black metal bands to pioneer the act of selling out. However, Shagrath and Co. publicly appeared on MTV to dispute this myth, then later played an entire live set of Stormblast 2 on TRL.

Though recently Dimmu Borgir has come to terms with their fame and fortune, Shagrath still claims "At least we have not sold out like that piece of shit Dani Filth. He's not even fucking Norwegian." This was quoted during the "Diabolical Monsters of Evil Tour" which featured Cradle of Filth and Behemoth as the opening acts.

Stolen video game music

Dimmu have also been cited for incorporating stolen video game music into their own albums. The keyboardist at the time openly denies the claims, while the other members act like they have no clue what anyone is talking about. The first occurrence of stolen music was featured on the first 50 pressings of "For Ass Tid". Track #4 was in fact the widely-known Super Mario Bros. theme song from the first level.

Another appearance of a stolen video game song happened on the original Stormblast album, however the keyboardist learned from his mistakes and chose a song from a game that no one cares about on a system that no one cares about. However, the video game creator sued the band (as he was the only person who could recognize the stolen tune), whom settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money (paid all by the bands label Nuclear Blast) and the keyboardist was kicked out.

When Stormblast 2 was in production, the band came to a stand still while trying to think of a instrumental to replace the stolen video game music. When a radio "demo only" version of Stormblast 2 hit a small amount of stations, DJ's were surprised to hear a symphonic metal version of Castlevania's "Bloody Tears" in its place. Once again the band scratched their balding heads in disbelief. Mustis "claims" that the tune came to his head one day while drinking absinthe and it is a totally original tune. To play it safe, Nuclear Blast had the song removed and replaced for the final release (although it does appear as a bonus track on the Japanese version of Stormblast 2, which went on to earn a double platinum in Japan for this reason only).

Album titles

There is much speculation as to where Dimmu Borgir get their names for albums and songs. In a rare interview recorded in 1999, Shagrath admitted that he just flips through an English dictionary with his eyes closed and picks three random words, claiming that Satan helps guide his finger towards the most evil ones.

Lyrics

Responsible for Dimmu Borgir's lyrics is Silenoz (probably the reason why he's always quiet is because he's composing lyrics). In an interview, Silenoz has stated that he has various inspiration for his lyrics as shown below.

Lyrics on For Ass Tid

The beauties of Norway.

Lyrics on Stormblast

The beauties of Norway being blasted by storms and various anti-christian remarks.

Lyrics on Enthrone Lightness Triumphant

Random satanic crap and free succubus porn at the end of the album.

Lyrics on Spiritual Moose Dimensions

The epic tale of Dimmu Trek where the Dimmu Borgir are traveling on their famous commercial space ship Borgir Enterprise towards the dimension of freedom and joy ruled by the Devil.

Lyrics on Puritanical Euphoric Misantropia

The title speaks for itself.

Lyrics on Death Kvlt Armageddon

Some random cult waiting for year 2012.

Lyrics on In Stromboli

By far Dimmu Borgir's most intelligent work EVER. It's a so called concept album based on the story of a priest which enters in contact with Satan for free gay porn and having his homosexual tastes satisfied. Because Christianity forbid homosexuality, the priest turns against it and creates his own cult which lasts for about an hour, because he's killed at the end.

Lyrics on Abracadabra

As if SilentOz's lyrics weren't getting predictable enough, on their latest album they pay a big tribute to trve kvlt satanic black magic by referencing the works of David Blaine, a famous man with many achievements in this department, obviously for the sake of grabbing the attention of hardcore fanboys, just to cash in more jewgolds.

Current members

Dimmu Borgir. The date of this photo is unknown, but fans have taken note of the Keyboardist's top hat in that background and estimate it at around 1852.

Shagrath

Shagrath was the founding member of Dimmu Borgir, and can play pretty much every instrument, however he plays none of them very well. Shagrath had an accident in the middle of a performance during around the time Spiritual White Dimensions was released. He mistakenly painted his face with a flammable corpsepaint, which ignited during the show when pyrotechnics went off. When he was rushed to the hospital, 90% of his organic tissue was destroyed, and most of his body was replaced by cybernetic limbs, courtesy of SkyNet.

Most notably replaced was his voicebox, which is now an analogue voice sequencer taken from a Speak & Spell unit. This helps explain his more unique vocal style on all albums after Spiritual White Dimensions, and most notably, the song "Puritania".

Silenoz

Silenoz (also known as SilentOz, also known as SilentOn, when he's awake, also known as SilentOff, when he's sleeping, also known as Sissy, when he's in Austria) - guitars (only in the album "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia")

Galder

Don't let the smile fool you. In this photo, Galder is actually experiencing excruciating pain due to his rotting penis.

Galder (aka Gruesome) is the guitarist/mascot for Dimmu Burger. Contrary to popular belief, Galder does in fact suffer from a rare form of face cancer which causes him to uncontrollably make ugly facial expressions during most live performances. This is due to muscles in his face being eaten away by a flesh eating lesions.

Galder , aka "Balder", was also the first member to completely lose all his hair due to premature balding. Silenoz is a close second, but constantly denies his hair loss problems. Still you can clearly see his hair line receding more and more in every album since Spiritual White Dimensions.

Galder is currently masquerading as a cameraman named Stuart in unpopular television series Most Haunted where he is known for being a pussy

Gerlioz

aka "Brat", "Brat Simpson", and "...who?" The part-time keyboardist for Dimmu Burger. Since Shagrug had recently developed a bad case of Fulltimememberaphobia, he forced Silenoz and Galder to admit that they only need session folk to play live for them under the guise of some paranoid belief that full time synth players, bassists, and drummers are out to get him, and as such, Brat Simpson only shows up on stage. He is also a current member of the Norwegian band The Kovenant. And who's the Kovenant, you ask? Well, apparently, they were known as "Covenant" and were a second-tier black metal act back in the 90s until they recorded "Nexus Polaris", which caused many a corpsepainted cosplayer to either fap themselves into pure blindness or cut their wrists in raging accordance of yet another black metal act "selling out". Since then, they changed their name to "The Kovenant" after losing a lawsuit they filed against an American Christian rock act also called "Covenant" (which, as a result, proved that God DOES exist) and moved into some kinda Nine-Inch-Nails-having-an-orgy-with-Marilyn-Manson-Skinny-Puppy-and-Ministry industrial gawth act and fading into oblivion. Brat Simpson's stage role in Dimmu Borgir is to stand like a fool and hammer at a fifty dollar Casio keyboard Shagrug begrudgingly bought for him, all while pre-recorded synth lines, performed by the 'rug himself, play from a mixer through the monitors, thereby ensuring that Shaggy-boy gets even more cash thrown his way.

Cyrus

aka "that one guy". The ex-husband to Alice Tompkins, father to Penny Tompkins, and occasional guitarist and bassist. Like Ice Dale and Frost before him, he comes off as the Revolver Ocelot of the Norwegian metal scene, changing his affiliation with bands and musicians on an almost daily basis. For example; he became the Borgir's new live bassist not long after the whole Vortex/Mustis firing debacle, then went on to play on Vortex's solo album. Somethin' ain't right there. As for his role in Dimmu Borgir, he's the bassist of a black metal band. Which, in essence, means nothing; no one can hear the bass in a black metal band anyway, so who cares? He was, at one time, a live guitarist filling in the role Balder vacated in order to write and record several songs' worth of A-grade black metal for his far-superior Old Man's Child band, and during that time, he proved that he was actually able to play some of the more intricate guitar solos former guitarist Astennu was adept at hammering out, something Balder seems completely unable, or unwilling, to do. That's a hell of a demotion if there ever was one...

Daray

aka "Auto Polska". The drummer to the Polish death metal act Vader and session drummer for Dimmu Borgir. Since he's not a full-blooded Norwegian, Shagrug and company keep him in a 4x4 kennel until the time comes in which his drumming skills are needed, to which they push two doses of Five-Hour Energy into an IV straight to his femoral artery and watch the sparks fly.

Former members

Heckhammer

Drums. Nazi gold. Glittery make-up. STDs. A band whore close to Gene Hoglan standings (though the Atomic Clock has, unfairly, had a 20-some-odd year head start), Heckhammer isn't happy unless he plays on at least 15 different albums from 15 different bands a year. Including Borgir, other acts Heckhammer has played in include Mayhem, Arcturus, Winds, Covenant/The Kovenant, Immortal and Antestor. Mr. Hammer is also a very loud advocate against Satanism, despite the fact that almost all the bands he'd played in had some kind of Satanic leaning in one way or another, which proves that the fucker is a hypocrite as well as a musical prostitute. His ability to play the drums has been called into question, as his gi-GAN-tic drum kit is triggered to Hell(hammer) with all sorts of pedals, bells and whistles, and there's absolutely no way a short, 30-to-40 year old New Zealander can play the drums that fast and that intense on recorded works (yes, New Zealander...how can someone of Norwegian heritage be THAT tan???)

ICS Vortex

Known in his home country of Norway as Simen Hestnæs, in Europe as I.C.S Vortex and in The United States as "that tall, blonde, bearded dude that does the clean singing in Dimmu Borgir" Mr. Hestnæs has played bass guitar and or sung since 1999's Spiritual White Dimensions. Harshly puritanical (and largely misanthropic) fans of the band have blamed Vortex and his amazing ability to carry a tune for contributing to the downfall of Dimmu Burger.

Vortex initially began to collaborate with Dimmu Borgir as a guest vocalist after almost 250 years as an obscure musician in various acts, including some of the more acceptably avant-garde likes of Arcturus and Borknagar. After bassist Nagash departed in 1999 Vortex saw his chance to show up arch-nemesis Garm (formerly of Borknagar, Ulver, Head Control System, and Arcturus.) and joined on as a permanent member.

Mr. Hestnæs adopted the name ICS Vortex.

Departure

Ahem, I believe it should be pointed out that Mustis and ICS Vortex got fired some time ago...via text message. Yes, text message. At least it wasn't over Myspace, right? Of course, still regarding Myspace, Mustis went bat shit insane and had some random person write a blog about how, "they would be nothing without him" and other 15-year old break up drama.

Astennu

aka "Jamie" and "the Aussie". The former lead guitarist to Dimmu Borgir, and one of the first to show real talent at his instrument, something neither SilentOz nor Shagrug could comprehend. As legend foretold, Astennu flew from the Outback to the frozen North in order to give his solo project Carpe Tenebrum some Euro exposure and found himself bumping elbows with Nagash in Abyss Studios. Nagash did some lead vocal work for Carpe's "Mirrored Hate Painting" record and encouraged Jamie-boy to try his luck in the realm of mainstream extreme metal. Little is known about this mysterious guitarist but many experts speculate that his stage name is simply a poor misspelling of "Asturianu". Attempts have been made to identify Astennu following his return to obscurity after his ejection from Dimmu Borgir in 1999. These attempts have been mostly fruitless.

Nagash

aka "Lex Icon", "The Gash", and "the guy from Troll...wait, who the fuck is 'Troll'?". The former bassist to Dimmu Borgir, current bassist/vocalist to The Kovenant, current frontman to Troll, former member of Covenant, former vocalist of Carpe Tenebrum, and a former member of probably a few other non-descript Norwegian extreme metal acts. Despite having such a somewhat tasty musical resume, Nagash really hasn't done anything utterly worthwhile in all his years of jumping from one black metal act to another (though to be fair, Carpe Tenebrum had one stellar album, but with absolutely NO creative input from him). Even his work in Enthrone Darkness Triumphant through Spiritual White Dimensions was buried under the thick, blurry Abyss Studio mix to the point where you don't even know if the guy even showed up to play his nigh-impossible bass lines. He did write some lyrics, though...some of the more Satanic ones, helping prove that at least one member of the band wasn't afraid of Satan and all his hijinks.

Nicholas Barker

aka "Nicholas", "Uncle Fester", "Big Fat Nick", and "Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is No Way to Go Through Life, Son". The former drummer to Dimmu Burger and one of the very few members to actually possess real talent and ability. Having cut a set of vampiric teeth in Cradle of Filth from 1994 to 1998, Little Nicky felt the need to enter a sort of musical devolution and joined Dimmu Borgir when their original drummer Tjodalv woke up, realized what band he had been in for the past ten years, and had himself committed. Sir Nicksalot hammered his skins on "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia" and "Death Cult Armageddon", and also appeared on the live DVD "Live Miss Anne, Throw Pee" and CD "Live in Torment" (which, aptly, was what the crowd at the show felt they were), in which he gave a quiet, very British interview in the former. He was canned after Shagrug and SilentOz found that lowering their standards down to their feet would make them the glam rock stars they'd longed to be from Day One, and Nick's blindly fast drumming proved too good. He then went on back to England and disappeared for a few years until he came back to the attention of the metal world by flirting with the bitterly overlooked thrash metal band Testament, reforming the grind act Lock Up, and becoming the live drummer to black metal also-rans Ancient.

Tjodalv

aka "Tole-Jahv", "Kenny G.", and "...you used to be in Dimmu?" One of the founding members of Dimmu Burger and masqueraded as their drummer from 1994 to 2000, except for "For Ass Tid", in which he tried to play the guitar to unsuccessful ends. During his time in Dimmu he also helped form Old Man's Child, another black metal act who sounded a hell of a lot like Dimmu during their formulative years. He then went on to form forty six different bands, all of them sounding exactly like Dimmu Burger, before having himself committed, knocking up his girlfriend, and forming the pseudo-death metal-cum-screamo band Susperia. He hasn't spoken with the other members of Dimmu ever since the restraining order had been put in place, but rumor has it he plans on forming a new band in the near future with Shagrug and SilentOz. I bet it'll sound just like Dimmu Burger...

Brynjard Tristan

aka "Bring Your Tryst, Anne!", "I Am Satan", and "...who?" The former bassist to Dimmu Burger, having only played on "Random Norwegian Nonsense", "For Ass Tid" and "Stormblast". Not much is known about this Norwegian character; outside of Dimmu, he apparently played bass for Old Man's Child until, one day, he walked into the forest in search of inspiration and was never seen or heard from again. There's a good chance that he is, in fact, the legenday Yeti monster, though what facts exist to that end are unsubstantiated.

Stian Aarstad

aka "Stian Aarstad", "That Idiot in the Top Hat" and "Plagiarist" The former keyboardist to Dimmu Burger, the first of approxomately thirty two different keyboardists who'd been part of the band's line up for the past two hundred years. Stories had been written that Mr. Aarstad didn't listen to metal at all until when he joined Dimmu, opting only to listen to classical music, and it was pretty evident where his musical leanings were when he composed the five-movement piece "Satanas Lux Lucis ex Inferni Norwaygian His Quoque Finem in F# Major", his first work for the band. The forty-minute song, performed with strings, brass, tympani, woodwinds and kazoo, is an opus in and of itself, throwing in layers and layers of very impressive compositional ability, and to listen to it is to truly experience emotions you'd never thought you'd feel again. However, Shagrug and SilentOz, only being able to play three different chords at a time on their guitars, did not possess the skills necessary to play his magnificent song and deleted it from their first recorded work, "Random Norwegian Nonsense", and forced poor Stian at knife point to play the keyboard lines THEY'D written. Spurned and angry, Stian glared at them as he was forced to play the same three singular notes over and over for minutes on end on his 2000 dollar Korg synthesizer and planned his revenge. The first part involved him taking time off from the band to "join the Norwegian army", which was actually him taking his "Satanas..." piece on the road to critical and commercial acclaim. When he came back, the second prong of his revenge came to be...during the writing of "Stormblast", he came to band practice with a keyboard line he claimed came to him in a dream and played it for them. Awestruck by it, the group sucked down their egos enough to have him record it, not knowing that he willfully stole the line from a song by the prog rock act Magnum, only played in a different key. Not to be outdone, however, Stian created the entire song "Sorgans Kammer" having lifted the whole piece from some Amiga game no one outside of the programmers had heard of. Eventually, Stian was fired from the group, and not long afterwards, he sent an anonymous email to the composer of the game, telling him that the band had stolen his song. This began a years'-long court battle, which Dimmu barely survived. Stian is now living happily in his palatial estate in Sweden counting the residual checks given to him from the multiple performances of "Satanas...", all the while laughing at Dimmu for all their high school drama and lack of musical ability.

Kimberly Goss

aka "Kim Goss", "Mrs. Alexi Laiho" and "Korean Slut". A prostitute, part-time stripper and, at one time, a keyboardist to Dimmu Burger. Wanting desperately to do something musical, she found temporary outlets in various groups including Ancient, the occasional stints in Children of Bodom and Therion, and her wannabe chick rock act Sinergy. One day, after trying to sleep her way into Immortal, she passed out and woke up several hours later in Dimmu Burger's tour bus, having learned that Immortal traded her to Dimmu for a case of Smirnoff Ice (Abbath and Demonaz both felt that her hot sexual prowess was a threat to their perpetual, asexual coldness). Now held hostage, she was forced to don tight, leather dresses and New Rock boots while hammering out single notes on a keyboard on stage with them, all the while staring blankly into space. Her attempts to woo the band with her feminine wiles and obviously Orient-based eroticism fell on deaf ears and blind eyes, as the equally asexual Dimmu Burger only found physical solace in the piles of money thrown their way. After that particular tour was over, she was thrown out of the bus after barely touching SilentOz's guitar. Feeling it was dirty and corrupted, SilentOz held it tight to him, rocking back and forth while humming "Antikrist" to himself over and over to prevent a meltdown from taking place. Afterwards, Miss Goss married Children of Bodom guitarist/yippie dog barker/pimp Alexi Laiho and tried, oh so desperately, to be in a band, but nothing worked. Since 2004 she'd abandoned her original musical acts and can now be found at your corner tavern sucking cock for shots of Petron. Classy lady...

Jens Peter

Some kind of member of Dimmu Burger, the first bald-headed one, but his position has been lost in the annals of time. I think he was a drummer...maybe a guitarist...all I know is that he was in a promotional picture with the group looking quite sinister in his cape and bald head covered from end to end with corpse paint. Rumor has it he was in Ved Buens Ende, but said rumors could very well prove incorrect. Any information on who he is and where he is now can be sent to whoisjenspeter?@gmail.com

Discography

• For Ass Tid (1988). This album was recorded on a donkey farm by Shagrath and Silenoz.
• Random Norwegian Nonsense (1994)
• For No Tid (1994). First 50 pressings featured the stolen Super Mario Bros. theme.
• Stormblåst (1996) The title of the album is a Norwegian term referring to blowing one's nose.
• Enthrone Starkness Triumphant (1997) An album dedicated to Tony Stark, aka Iron Man.
• Stormblåst 1.1 (1999). Advertised as the Director's Cut, with 6 minutes of more music plus bonus making-of featurette.
• Spiritual Plaque Dimensions (1999) An album detesting the removal of dental plaque. It was endorsed by the World Health Organization.
• Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia (2002) An album highlighting the over-use of an English dictionary and thesaurus.
• Stormblåst 1.5 (2003). Exactly the same as Stormblåst 1.1, however the making-of featurette is remastered in High Definition. The music is also upscaled to 5.1 Dolby Surround. However, due to technical limitations of current Audio CDs, the 5.1 Audio had to be downsampled back to Stereo, and the resulting CD sounds no different than Stormblåst 1.1.
• Death Kvlt: Armageddon (2003)
• Stormblåst 2 (2005) The same as Stormblåst (1996), but with less musical content and a higher price tag.
• In Stromboli (2007) But it wasn't that delicious.
• Enthrone Lightness Triumphant 2 (2009) This was recently confirmed to be the next album by Dimmu Burger.
• Abracadabra (2010.) New Dimmu Borgir album and for tour they planed to perform a magic trick during every song and album is dedicated to David Blaine's magic.

See Also

• Black Metal
• Kitten Huffing