So last week Snowy Shaw officially joined and then officially quit Dimmu Borgir, all within twenty-four hours. And now Shagrath says the band is going to remain a three-piece consisting of the “core” members of himself and guitarists Sneezy and Grumpy — uh, I mean, Silenoz and Galder — with some touring members so the band doesn’t just become the equivalent of a black metal karaoke band. That’s not the first time a band has made the decision to never hire a permanent replacement — metal and non-metal bands from The Rolling Stones to R.E.M. to Korn have all done it, presumably because a) they don’t think anyone else has anything to bring to the table creatively and b) it’s cheaper. It will be the first time I’ve ever heard of a co-lead vocalist being just a hired gun, though, so that will probably be kinda weird.

So while we wait to see which poor bastards are the new not-really members of Dimmu Borgir, we can listen to a new song, “Gateways,” with vocals by Snowy Shaw, and dream of what could have been — namely, a world in which there was a band features members named both “Silenoz” and “Snowy.”

At least, I assume that’s Snowy doing the clean vocals. Whomever that is at the 1:32 mark, he or she should be shot in the throat. Holy shit, that is the ugliest sound I have ever heard not coming from an overweight octogenarian. It’s like they hired an eunuch, and then made that eunuch inhale helium before singing. I imagine that what’s a cockroach sounds like when it sings. Luckily, some chick comes in at the end and doesn’t sound like a member of the cast of Joe’s Apartment.

Check out the song here.

-AR

So in case ya didn’t hear, Dimmu Borgir fired their bassist/clean vocalist, ICS Vortex, and their keyboard player, Mustis, over the weekend. Well, I guess technically the band “parted ways” with those members, but by all accounts, it wasn’t a break-up reached by mutual decision.

To wit: Mustis briefly changed his MySpace status to “betrayed” before revealing this little nugget of information:

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While Anthrax, Testament, Heaven and Hell and motherfucking Motorhead are among the most anticipated bands that metal pilgrims are converging on western Germany to see, it would appear that my favored people, those crafty Norwegians, also have a few things planned for the mayhem. While Enslaved will be appearing (and hopefully represented on a good stage, because you know they fucking deserve it) some others are teaming up with foreigners in combinations that are hard to ignore.

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I have to admit, the Shockhound series “Stella Can’t Cook,” in which Stella invites her rockstar friends into the kitchen to make a dish of their choice, is pretty entertaining. The episode featuring Marta from Bleeding Through was good enough, but the latest ep with Silenoz of Norwegian dark lords Dimmu Borgir is even better if for no other reason than his complete apathy and disinterest in the entire situation. Except when it comes to spicy mustard: “Regular mustard is for pussies.” Amen, Silenoz, a-fucking-men.

-VN