Norwegian gods of the dark Dimmu Borgir may have feinted at symphonic music in the past, but on their ninth record, they embrace it entirely. The album opens with a booming, boisterous orchestra — complete with ghost-choir vocals and big, doomy blasts of brass — before plunging into the hard death spiral that is "Born Treacherous." There's no hokey magic act in the title, either — "Abrahadabra" is a cultic word signifying "A great work accomplished," and that's precisely what Dimmu Borgir has done here. They fuse brutal, hammering black metal riffs with long, elegant symphonic passages, giving the whole record an imposing, symphonic grandeur. Listen to the opening of "Gateways," with its jackhammer double-bass, feverish violins and doomed choral vocals, and try to keep your skin from crawling.