Dimmu Borgir have long been threatening to crawl out from the Black metal underground and fight Cradle Of Filth for the top spot of the extreme metal world. They promised it and came oh so close with “Spiritual Black Dimensions” and “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”, but only now, with “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia”, do they actually deliver. “Blessings Upon The Throne Of Tyranny” opens with a jackhammer display of drumming that shows the three-man Slipknot drum section up for the pretenders they are. The guitars at time sound like Cannibal Corpse with a bad headache, but there’s a melody lurking in there somewhere, which puts this several steps higher than the usual black-metal gurnings. The naysayers have pointed the finger and shouted “Black Metal Boyband!” at Borgir, but if being damn good at what you do and producing songs as polished as Dimmu Borgir are doing right now, I say this can only be a good thing. Black metal needs to pull it’s head out from it’s own arse and stop being so incestuous and self-referential, or it’ll be dying a sorry death far too soon. Shagrath even forsakes the traditional Black metal screech for some of “Absolute Sole Right”,matched by an increasingly overt string section and a chugging beast of a riff, it works eerily well. “Architect Of Genocidal Nature” is a spooky thrash-goth hybrid that is probably the most Cradle-esque song on the album. It’s got the machine-gun drumming, the blend of hollowed whispers and bowel-breaking screams for vocals, and enough experimental keyboards at work to keep the track fresh and vivid. At 3:06, “Hybrid Stigmata” is the shortest track on the album, and sees the band dabbling in a bit of industrial stylings. Shagrath croaks through a vocoder to some precise alongwith suitably distanced guitars pumping out a riff. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed of Nick Barker’s drumming on “Puritania” will make you wonder more and more what Cradle Of Filth were thinking when they showed him the door. The intercuts of the Gothenburg Symphonic Orchestra sound almost natural, which is a lot more than can be said for Metallica’s “S&M” experiment. Dimmu Borgir has an advantage over most other Black and Death metal bands – they seek to innovate rather than regurgitate. While other Black metal bands are out trying out new corpse-paint designs, Dimmu Borgir were in the studio putting together killer riffs, like the snarling beast in “Sympozium”. Imagine Slayer-gone-Goth and you’re beginning to get the picture. “Perfection or Vanity” is the instrumental close to the album, and although it seems a little too long (especially without any vocal hooks) it’s as good a way to end as album as any. Dimmu Borgir don’t do the humour or high camp that seem to hand-in-hand with Cradle Of Filth, but they more than make up for it with a line in crunching guitars that is characteristic of everything musically heavy that Norway has ever spitted out (which is something Cradle have never quite mastered) . They only let their guard down once, with their cover of Twisted Sister’s “Burn In Hell” showing there are more than just stern frowns on offer in Scandinavia. Dimmu Borgir have managed to produce an album that is gothic without being pretentious, and violently heavy without losing clarity. It’s got scope, vision, and above all, it’s as heavy as fuck.