In Sorte Diaboli

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Untitled

In Sorte Diaboli (Latin for "In direct contact with Satan") is Norwegian symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir's eighth studio album, released in 2007. It is the band's first concept album. A site on the Nuclear Blast website was created for In Sorte Diaboli, in which a new promotional photo can be seen and an audio sample can be heard. This would be the last album by Dimmu Borgir to feature ICS Vortex and Mustis before both band members were fired in 2009.

Concept

In Sorte Diaboli is the band's first concept album, with a story located in medieval Europe. It is about a priest who begins to doubt his faith, and then ends up taking the place of the Antichrist. "There's this dude that works as a priest's assistant, and after a while he just discovers that he has nothing to do with Christianity," Silenoz says. "He just sort of has this awakening and realizes that he has different abilities and different powers and is leaning more to the dark side." The words "In Sorte Diaboli" are a repeated line in the song "The Chosen Legacy" and the words also appears towards the end of the song, "The Sinister Awakening". The conclusion of the story in the booklet implies that the story of In Sorte Diaboli is not yet finished, possibly hinting that Dimmu Borgir's next studio album will continue this concept. Additionally, the "Making of In Sorte Diaboli" Special feature, Silenoz says that the concept of this album will continue into the next five albums, finishing a six part series. However, this does not seem to be the case, as the next album, Abrahadabra, is heavily influenced by Aleister Crowley's Thelema text The Book of the Law. IGN named the album the Top Metal Album of 2007.

Leak

On March 6, 2007, In Sorte Diaboli leaked onto the internet and is currently circulating on several peer-to-peer networks and on the popular videosharing site YouTube (Nuclear Blast later removed the songs from the site). Since press worldwide were supplied with individual download accounts for the music on the Nuclear Blast website instead of regular promotional CDs, the source of the leak was rapidly found. The journalist who was found responsible, Luca Pessina, is a writer for the Metalitalia webzine and also news editor for the Italian version of Metal Hammer, and were forced to face legal procedures from Nuclear Blast. The leaked files contained Pessina's personal watermark.[1] Pessina was eventually found innocent. This is the final statement from Nuclear Blast about this matter:

We have written in a press statement dated 15 March 2007 that the source of the illegal download files of the DIMMU BORGIR album 'In Sorte Diaboli' was Mr. Luca Pessina, a journalist with Metal Hammer Italy and Metalitalia.com. That statement gave the impression that Mr. Pessina was responsible for releasing those files to the Internet. We now accept that this is not the case. Mr. Pessina has made it explicitly clear that he did not use the files and he did not release them in any way. An investigation by Nuclear Blast has shown that Mr. Pessina did not himself download any of the files from 'In Sorte Diaboli'. It has not been possible to determine who was responsible for uploading the files for illegal download. Nuclear Blast has, therefore, now definitely decided to refrain from any legal action against Mr. Pessina and regrets any distress or harm caused to Mr. Pessina and his reputation as the result of any misunderstandings of our previous statement.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
About.com[1]
Allmusic[2]
Blabbermouth[3]
Kerrang![citation needed]
Metal Hammer[citation needed]
Verdens Gang6/6[4]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."The Serpentine Offering"5:09
2."The Chosen Legacy"4:16
3."The Conspiracy Unfolds"5:24
4."The Ancestral Fever" (European Bonus Track and Leather Book edition)5:51
5."The Sacrilegious Scorn"3:58
6."The Fallen Arises"2:59
7."The Heretic Hammer" (North American Bonus Track and Leather Book edition)4:37
8."The Sinister Awakening"5:09
9."The Fundamental Alienation"5:17
10."The Invaluable Darkness"4:44
11."The Foreshadowing Furnace"5:50
No.TitleLength
1."Black Metal" (Venom cover)3:22
2."The Heretic Hammer"4:37
3."The Ancestral Fever"5:51
4."The Serpentine Offering" (video)4:54

Personnel

Technical

Special editions

  • The album was specially released in a limited edition digipak that contains a bonus DVD, 32-page booklet, and mirrored lyrics. The European limited digipak and the mail order leather-bound book editions come with a plastic mirror with which one can properly read the lyrics. The North American limited edition does not contain this mirror. The DVD contains the video clip for "The Serpentine Offering", two short "making of" documentaries for both the album and the video, a photogallery, and a media player.
    • The limited-edition European digipak features the bonus track "The Ancestral Fever" as the fourth track.[5]
    • The limited-edition North American digipak features the bonus track "The Heretic Hammer" as the sixth track.
    • The limited-edition Japanese digipak features the bonus track "Black Metal", a cover of the classic Venom track, as the tenth track.
  • A very limited exclusive mail order edition, which features a leather booklet, was also released. This version also contains the two bonus tracks from the North American and European digipak versions.
  • The vinyl edition is a gatefold LP packaged with a bonus 7", which also contains both the European and the North American Bonus track, and is limited to 2000 copies worldwide.[6]
  • The artwork is censored by a slipcase cover in North America.

Chart and sales performance

In their native Norway, the album peaked at number 1, which marks the first time in history of a black metal band reaching the number 1 spot.[citation needed] The album sold approximately 14,000 copies in its first week.[7] The album also sold well in Sweden, Finland, Austria and Switzerland.[8]

Region Chart
(2007) 		Peak Position Notes
United States Billboard 200
#43[7]
 Dimmu Borgir is the first Norwegian band to break the U.S. Top 50 since a-ha.[3]

Billboard Top Independent Albums
#2[9]
Norway
#1[3]
UK Banned
–
 In Sorte Diaboli was disqualified twice by The Official UK Charts Company. The first disqualification was for the inclusion of a mirror inside the Digipack; the second was because the album included a flyer promoting a "meet the band" competition.[8]

References

  1. ^ Bowar, Chris. "Dimmu Borgir - In Sorte Diaboli review". About.com: Heavy Metal. About.com. Retrieved 7 February 2010.
  2. ^ Jurek, Thom. "In Sorte Diaboli Review". Allmusic. Retrieved 7 February 2010.
  3. ^ a b c Alisoglu, Scott (23 April 2007). "Dimmu Borgir – In Sorte Diaboli (Nuclear Blast)". Blabbermouth.net. Roadrunner Records. Retrieved 7 February 2010. Cite error: The named reference "blabbermouth" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ Østbø, Stein (26 April 2007). "Dimmu Borgir: «In Sorte Diaboli»" (in English and trans. from Norwegian). Verdens Gang. Retrieved 7 February 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  5. ^ Dimmu Borgir - New Album Track List Revealed + Other Details About The Album - Metal Storm
  6. ^ Dimmu Borgir - In Sorte Diaboli
  7. ^ a b Katie Hasty, "Lavigne Remains No. 1 As Joe Debuts High", Billboard.com, May 2, 2007.
  8. ^ a b "Dimmu Borgir Debut At #1 In Norway, Banned From UK Chart". MetalUnderground.com. 10 May 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2010.
  9. ^ "In Sorte Diaboli - Billboard Charts". Allmusic. Retrieved 7 February 2010.

External links

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