I was up and in Croydon at the crack of dawn today (well, nine o’ clock anyway) due to a shiny new album. Actually it wasn’t Iron Maiden’s Dance of Death, although it was certainly great to see so many Iron Maiden T-shirts around (I’ve already preordered my copy from Amazon for just Ł8.49 – bloody impressive! As a quick aside, the album cover is the one we’ve seen and been shocked by – it looks a little better shrunk down and glossy, but for a band who’ve had some of the greatest album covers in history, this poorly rendered piece of digital crap is a bit of a traversty.). No, the reason I was out at such an ungodly hour was Dimmu Borgir’s new opus, Death Cult Armageddon, and oh yes, was it worth it! There’s something about a full 46 piece orchestra battling alongside one of the most powerful black metal bands currently playing that just blows you away. And the gorgeous digipak release opens in all directions and is full of superbly photographed landscapes littered with human skulls and bones, and some decidedly strange mechanical structures. It’s nice when bands pay that kind of attention to detail. ;o)

I should point out for the unaware that Dimmu are somewhat Satanic. Possibly a little more than that. As a Christian I find it a little annoying how the metal press like to focus on satanism because it’s cool at the moment and is clearly an image that sells. The result is that other alternative artists are often overlooked as a result because they aren’t “satanic enough”, whatever that means. Funnily enough I’m quite used to people not sharing my opinions (from a Christian vampire perspective! ;o) so I don’t find the satanic element of such music offensive but more…tiresome, I suppose. Fortunately Dimmu’s music and anger is more focused on modern humanity than Christianity. No church burning for them, then…and that’s just fine with me!

While I was out, I also ordered Tim Burton’s illustrated book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, so I should be a proud owner of that dark little gem by the end of the week. I’ll let you know just how wickedly funny it is then…