Dimmu Borgir guitarist Sven “Silenoz” Kopperud spoke with KillerTube about the band’s upcoming album Grand Serpent Rising, due May 22 via Nuclear Blast Records — eight years after 2018’s Eonian. Asked whether the serpent imagery of shedding skin and renewal reflects what Dimmu Borgir went through over that stretch, Silenoz said (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “We’ve had to shed quite a lot, as usual, maybe more than previously. But it’s all a good thing. I feel like great things shouldn’t be easily achieved. It should include a lot of sacrifice, and that’s what we feel like we have done with this record. And it just sucks that it took us eight years to have it out. But there you go. I’d rather have quality over quantity any day. So, whenever we feel ready to release it upon the world, that’s when we do it.”
On the challenge of cutting material from the album, Silenoz said: “It can be challenging. It’s like if you have worked on a musical part for like weeks and months, and it doesn’t find its way into a song for whatever reason, and it’s still a great piece of music that doesn’t make it to the album — it happens more than once. And it’s part of being an artist. You have to write for what’s best for the songs. You cannot force things in there just to have a piece of the pie extra. That doesn’t work for the overall picture.”
“I think we’ve gotten a lot better at doing it the way we do it on this album, the last few times, because, yeah, it just feels the flow is there a bit more, I think, and we try not to analyze it to death. I think that’s also very important, that you do spontaneous things and you take things as they come,” he added.
On whether external expectations shaped the songwriting process, Silenoz elaborated, “If you do something and you don’t expect a reward for it, that’s usually when the great things come. If you try to force things to you, then that’s just going to go further away from you. Obviously, we don’t mind the ‘thumbs up’ and people coming to our shows — this is what we do for a living — but we would still do it at whatever level we are at, ’cause it’s part of you. And if we did it for other reasons, we would have an album out every year.”
Grand Serpent Rising was recorded in Gothenburg with producer Fredrik Nordström, who also worked with the band on Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia and Death Cult Armageddon.
When Grand Serpent Rising was first announced in late March, Silenoz commented on the eight-year gap: “No question: quality must always trump quantity. We eventually set deadlines, but in the early stages of a new album, there are no schedules at all. Rushing means nothing to us. The most powerful blackened art simply can’t be forced without losing its essence.”
“It can easily become an endless process. Whatever you create, you constantly feel it could be improved — that’s the artist’s curse, and that’s why you eventually move on to make another album. But with every record, a point finally comes when everything feels exactly right. And that’s when it’s time to let it go.”
On the album title: “It fits perfectly. Dimmu Borgir is a leviathan of a band on a grand scale, and we are rising once again. While the serpent represents evil to some, for us it symbolizes something else: renewal, growth, knowledge, and liberation. Shedding our skin, so to speak. And let’s not forget that February 2026 marks the end of the Year Of The Snake, roughly the same moment this album was completed.”
Grand Serpent Rising is a full-band effort featuring Daray (drums), Victor Brandt (bass), Gerlioz (keyboards), and Damage (guitars). Thematically, the record traces a spiritual arc — transformation, ego dissolution, and awakening — drawing on esoteric traditions and alchemical self-transformation.
“Within every human being lie dormant divine centers, the chakras, whose awakening may take countless lifetimes through natural evolution,” Silenoz explained. “Yet once the soul reaches sufficient maturity, this process can be accelerated. Through disciplined self-training and deep meditation, the sacred force may rise within a single lifetime, activating each center in turn.”
Dimmu Borgir will tour North America in August with Hypocrisy and Suffocation.
The post DIMMU BORGIR’s SILENOZ Explains 8-Year Wait For Band’s New Album: “I Feel Like Great Things Shouldn’t Be Easily Achieved” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
