Silenoz has said that the album’s titular serpent represents renewal, its skin-shedding allowing for growth and evolution. It’s an idea which resonates through lyrics which reach for transformation and transcendence, particularly on the alternately doomy and dreamy Repository Of Divine Transmutation.
The only real issue with Grand Serpent Rising is that there is so much of it. Sure, it’s entirely fitting that a band with such maximalist tendencies in their composition should unleash a 70-minute epic. But by the album’s closing stretch, the relentless exposure to constant blackened proggery starts to feel like overload. Closer Gjǫll does feature what appear to be owl samples, though, so that’s nice.
Given the lengthy gestation that has come to characterise Dimmu releases, Grand Serpent Rising could end up their only studio album of the 2020s, perhaps allowing time to absorb its surplus of ideas. Even so, some judicious pruning would have left it standing even grander.
Verdict: 3/5
For fans of: Cradle Of Filth, Behemoth, Satyricon
Grand Serpent Rising is out now via Nuclear Blast