DIMMU BORGIR's 'Abrahadabra' Enters Norwegian Chart At No. 2

"Abrahadabra", the ninth album from Norwegian symphonic black metallers DIMMU BORGIR, has entered the official chart in the band's home country at position No. 2.

DIMMU BORGIR's previous effort, "In Sorte Diaboli", debuted on the Norwegian chart at No. 1 back in May 2007 — marking the first time a black metal act had ever topped a national album chart anywhere in the world.

Tord Krogtoft, head music buyer at Platekompaniet, Norway's biggest retalier, commented: "DIMMU BORGIR is producing good sales numbers all across the country.

"Metal is probably a genre that doesn't diferentiate between urban and rural areas.

"DIMMU BORGIR are in the top 3 in our charts in the countryside and smaller cities as well as in Oslo.

"The only reason they didn't get the No. 1 spot this time is that one of the most popular Norwegian troubadours — singer/songwriter Odd Nordstoga — released his album a couple of days earlier than planned.

"I believe DIMMU BORGIR can sell 20,000 copies again in Norway (as they did with 2003's 'Death Cult Armageddon'). This is all about metal fans being loyal. Not only to bands, but to the physical format. If you have a DIMMU BORGIR badge on your jacket, streaming their album doesn't cut it."

Asbjørn Slettemark from "Lydverket", Norway's biggest music TV show, told BLABBERMOUTH.NET: "DIMMU BORGIR has a unique position in Norway, and that's why they reached No. 1 with their last album and No. 2 with 'Abrahadabra'. They have managed to keep a core audience in the metal scene, but also reach the curious mainstream audience that bands like IMMORTAL and ENSLAVED don't appeal to. I am, however, quite sure that this new album will peak faster than previous records, because it is really not as mainstream as their older releases."

DIMMU BORGIR previous Norwegian chart positions:

** "Spiritual Black Dimensions" (1999)
Peak position: #18

** "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia" (2001)
Peak position: #16

** "Death Cult Armageddon" (2003)
Peak position: #2

** "Stormblåst" (re-recording) (2005)
Peak position: #24

** "In Sorte Diaboli" (2007)
Peak position: #1

"Abrahadabra" will be released in North America on October 12 via Nuclear Blast Records.

"In Sorte Diaboli" sold 14,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 43 on the Billboard chart. This was more than double the 6,400 first-week tally achieved by its predecessor, "Death Cult Armageddon", which came out in September 2003 and landed at position No. 169 on The Billboard 200 chart.

The word "abrahadabra" (which roughly translates into "I will create as I speak") first publicly appeared in Chapter III of "Liber AL vel Legis" (commonly referred to as "The Book of the Law") written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in 1904.

"Abrahadabra" track listing:

01. Xibir (2:50)
02. Born Treacherous (5:02)
03. Gateways (5:10)
04. Chess With The Abyss (4:08)
05. Dimmu Borgir (5:35)
06. Ritualist (5:13)
07. The Demiurge Molecule (5:29)
08. A Jewel Traced Through Coal (5:16)
09. Renewal (4:11)
10. Endings And Continuations (5:58)

In a recent interview with the German edition of Metal Hammer magazine, DIMMU BORGIR vocalist Shagrath (real name: Stian Tomt Thoresen) was asked why the band chose to break the tradition of using a three-word title for a DIMMU BORGIR album on its latest effort. "It was a tradition for the last records to use a three-word title, basically, for the fact that it represents much more of a unity thing than just one word," he replied. "'Abrahadabra' is more about the transfusion of new blood, I would say, in a way that we have chosen to do a lot of things differently from what we had done before. We wanted to break out of the patterns in many ways, including the people who play on the record, and also the studios we have used for the record — everything is basically different, so therefore we felt it was more right to use a one-word title instead of a [three-word one]."

When asked why DIMMU BORGIR chose to hire almost 100 guest musicians to replace two former members — bassist/clean vocalist ICS Vortex (real name: Simen Hestnæs) and keyboardist Mustis (real name: Øyvind Mustaparta) — Shagrath said, "Well, you can't see it like that; it's a stupid way of saying it. I wouldn't phrase the question like that. It doesn't make sense, really, because the orchestration has nothing to do with the firing of the two members at all. That's just a stupid question. We have used an orchestra before, but this time we're going for a bigger orchestra to make it more epic and sound bigger, and that's the way we want to go and that has, basically, nothing to do with any previous members leaving or being fired."