Review by Daniel for Dimmu Borgir - Stormblåst (1996)

After being totally underwhelmed by Dimmu Borgir's "For All Tid" debut, I decided to give their second album "Stormblast" the benefit of the doubt & therefore went in with an open mind. Although I find it to be a big improvement on "For All Tid", I am still a long way from really enjoying it. The production is still pretty poor even though it's undoubtedly better than their debut. The drum sound is particularly average & the guitars need much more depth (& probably more overdubs). Also, I'm afraid that there is just not much of a dark atmosphere or any form of aggression. It all just seems to float along in a very unintimidating fashion with the keyboards taking most of the focus. What they need are some riffs with real excitement in them. "Stormblast" doesn't appeal to my tastes so I pretty quickly find myself bored.