Spiritual Black Dimensions


Spiritual Black Dimensions is the fourth studio album by Norwegian symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir, released in 1999 through Nuclear Blast Records. The album is the first release featuring keyboardist Mustis and the clean vocals of ICS Vortex, and the last one with long-time drummer Tjodalv, guitarist Astennu, and bassist Nagash. It is also the first one where Shagrath is totally on lead vocals and didn't play any instrument, being the first full-length album where the band features six musicians.
The album marks major compositional and stylistic shift from romantic influences of their previous albums to a more sinister and macabre sound. In terms of production, it is the second consecutive full-length Dimmu Borgir album recorded at Abyss Studio, Sweden by Peter Tägtgren. According to the band, they faced difficulties when mixing the album due too many recorded layers, hence two different versions were mixed in the studio. Eventually the second one was released.
During the actual recording session, Astennu also recorded Mirrored Hate Painting, a second album of his side project Carpe Tenebrum with Nagash on vocals in Abyss Studio B, which was run by Tommy Tägtgren, Peter's brother. A deluxe edition was released in 2004 with bonus material. A digipak edition with reflective/holographic cover art was also published, which contains no bonus tracks.
The album cover was part of the top 10 of Greatest Heavy Metal Album Covers by Blender magazine in 2006. It was inspired by The Wounded Angel, a painting by a Finnish symbolist artist Hugo Simberg.

Reception

Steve Huey of AllMusic stated that "Dimmu Borgir's arrangements continue to increase in complexity and sophistication on Spiritual Black Dimensions, improving on its predecessors and illustrating the band's musical progression". In Slayer no. 13, Jon 'Metalion' Kristiansen called Spiritual Black Dimensions "a fine case of melodic, over-produced, symphonic metal. If you like this melodic style I can't really think of anyone doing it better . No, I wouldn't call this black metal. Read the interview with Funeral Mist for the right definition of black metal".

Track listing

Personnel

;Dimmu Borgir
; Guests
  • ICS Vortex – clean vocals on tracks 1, 3, 7 and 9
; Technical staff