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Well, I have been avoiding Dimmu Borgir for years, ever since the gigantic felchpile of Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia turned this band to utter shit. No matter how much I enjoy their old albums, nothing was going to induce me to waste time or money on Death Cult Armageddon, and need I mention the horror of "reimagining" Stormblast? Dreadful. But this time I felt like I'd check in, see how the band was doing. After all, after this time interval, they should either be noticeably worse or maybe even marginally better.

This album, seventh in their discography (eighth if you count the 'do-over'– which I don't) is a bit better than their last few discs if only because they throttled the fuck back a little. Rather than the circus of fellatio that was Misanthropia we get some more focused, guitar-driven songs without all the wretched keys jizzing all over the landscape. There are still keys, yes, and still some places where they cover Shagrath's voice in awful effects, and ICS Vortex still vomits his dull clean vocals into the mix here and there. But overall, this is much more solid than I was expecting. It's not really Black Metal, or Death, it's just a kind of commercialized "extreme" music that is simplistic without totally insulting my intelligence. The riffs are simplistic but heavy, and at least they are the primary element of the music. Shagrath sounds a little better than he has in the past – more visceral and less Dani-like.

I don't know, isn't one of the signs of the end of the world a DB album that doesn't suck total ass? Well this one doesn't. If you hated them before, this won't change your mind, but overall In Sorte Diaboli is not terrible. Dimmu seem to have toned down their excesses and produced a darker and heavier album, albiet without changing their recent style too much. All the HotTopic kids who listen to this band and think they are 'extreme' with eat this up and think it's the heaviest thing ever. But really, this is just one more Dimmu Borgir album, a step up from their last few efforts, but not much more than that.