The band has been through numerous lineup changes over the years; vocalist Shagrath and rhythm guitarist Silenoz are the only original members who still remain.

Shagrath, Brynjard Tristan and Stian Aarstad later joined Dimmu Borgir, and then released an EP in 1994 entitled Inn i evighetens mørke ("Into the Darkness of Eternity").

The initial line-up consisted of Shagrath playing drums with Tjodalv on guitar and Silenoz contributing lead vocals.

[4][5] After Stormblåst, keyboardist Stian Aarstad left the band due to his obligation to serve in the Norwegian army, thus being unable to participate in the 1996 recording of Devil's Path.

[citation needed] Enthrone Darkness Triumphant was a huge success for the band, and was their first release signed to Nuclear Blast, a German record label.

Dimmu Borgir's following full-length albums Spiritual Black Dimensions in 1999 and 2001's Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, both met critical acclaim.

[12][13][14] Despite the regular video play on MTV2 and Fuse that their follow-up album would receive, the band stated that they were not "commercially-oriented", and instead, they "simply wished to spread their message to more people".

[18] In October 2008, they released their second live DVD set titled The Invaluable Darkness, which was based on several shows during the world tour supporting "In Sorte Diaboli".

[21] Shagrath, Silenoz and Galder wrote: "Funny then, how the new album is half-way finished written already by the rest of us without any of these guys' input, still having all those elements we're known for.

My role in this is sometimes just to transcribe their themes, sometimes to take their ideas, tear them apart and build them back up in ways that are true to the band's intentions.

On 8 July the band confirmed that they had tapped Swedish multi-instrumentalist Snowy Shaw (Therion, Dream Evil) to replace bassist/clean vocalist ICS Vortex on their then-upcoming album, Abrahadabra, and world tour.

28 May 2011 saw Dimmu Borgir, for the first time in the band's career, perform live with a full symphony orchestra and choir in a one-off show with the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra and Schola Cantorum Choir (who collaborated on Abrahadabra the previous year) at the Oslo Spectrum entitled "Forces of the Northern Night".

[28] Silenoz has also said in several recent interviews that both live sets have been fully mixed and will be accompanied by a feature-length documentary and bonus material when released.

On March 30, 2024, during a show in Norway, the band reunited with former members Tjodalv, ICS Vortex and Mustis for a live performance.

On August 18, 2024, Galder announced via his Instagram account that he had left Dimmu Borgir, playing his last show the day before at Dynamo Metal Fest.

Dimmu Borgir's older releases (since 1994 to 1999) are, according to AllMusic journalist Bradley Torreano, strongly influenced by Darkthrone, Mayhem, Bathory, Emperor, Celtic Frost, Immortal, Venom, and Iron Maiden.

[36] Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, Dimmu Borgir's third album, "distinguished itself in two important areas, firstly forgoing their native language for English and secondly for its dramatic increase in synthesizer content.

"[36] Significant experimentation began with 1999's Spiritual Black Dimensions (due to the addition of Vortex's clean vocals, and the variety of musical ideas from then-new member Mustis), as well as Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia[14] due to addition of influences from composers such as Antonín Dvořák, Enya, Richard Wagner, and Frédéric Chopin.