I find myself listening to Burzum loads these days, especially while in bed reading. Whatever you think of the man or his various beliefs his music is amazing. I just had 'Hliđskjalf' on and, to be honest, I haven't spent much time with the non- metal stuff, but it hit the spot nicely this evening. Varg was a master of writing stripped back, simple and perfect riffs and that comes across in the prison albums too. There's nothing fussy, nothing extraneous and it's all understated, but as well as having a cool atmosphere it has brilliant melodies throughout.
I'd probably have to go with 'Hvis Lysett Tar Oss' or 'Filosofem' as favourites, but 'Belus' and 'Fallen' are both brilliant pieces of work too, in my opinion. I haven't spent enough time with the other later albums to firm an opinion on them but I'll get around to it.
I can't help but be drawn back again and again to that era of black metal. I am coming to the opinion that the creativity and magic that was presented by many of the bands back then simply can't be matched by most modern bands.
Burzum for me is definitely on a whole other level when it comes to that 'magic' element to the music, that certain something you can't really put your finger on or articulate but when you listen to the music it seems to wash over you and instantly put you into a certain mood.
I think his choices of cover artwork for the early albums, especially on Hvis lyset tar oss, really add to that feeling of being completely drawn into the world of the music.
Quote from: Eoin McLove on May 11, 2020, 11:14:05 PMI'd probably have to go with 'Hvis Lysett Tar Oss' or 'Filosofem' as favourites, but 'Belus' and 'Fallen' are both brilliant pieces of work too, in my opinion. I haven't spent enough time with the other later albums to firm an opinion on them but I'll get around to it.
I can't help but be drawn back again and again to that era of black metal. I am coming to the opinion that the creativity and magic that was presented by many of the bands back then simply can't be matched by most modern bands.
Would you believe this is almost exactly the conversation I was having with another forum member (who'll likely show his face when he sees this) today. Same two favourites though 'Det Som Engang Var' was the first I heard, 'Hvis...' and 'Filosofem' absolutely class. It all has a very unique and sort of relaxed, almost hypnotic atmosphere not evoked in a lot of other music in the exact same way, very particular sort of thing. Used to absolutely live on his stuff years back.
Every now and again I go on a spell of listening to BM a lot again and have to say it's quite hard to pinpoint exactly what I like in the genre each time to follow a particular line of listening. I mean, the overall atmosphere is more important than the riffs, the production, the technicality, etc, if that makes sense.
Filosofem really does it for me. I love getting lost in the music. The album has this flow to it that's hard to describe even. I've listened to his prison albums bit never really got into them. Perhaps a few more listens at some point
There is something special about Filosofem in particular - all the elements combine to make something genuinely unique. I generally pay no attention whatsoever to what artists say they are trying to accomplish with their music because I couldn't care less, but what Varg said about trying to weave a "Spell" with each Burzum album actually rings true to me.
Filosofem would be perfect except for that instrumental being 25 mins long! About 12 mins would have been fine.
I was just going to mention that 'circumbabulation' choon at the end, the non stop repetition seemed totally pointless to me the first time I heard it. It's grown on me though.
Bizarrely, I just read on the albums wikipedia page the instrumental was sampled in a song by Gucci Mane and Kanye West :laugh:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ocXKh_uz9A
I wouldn't go as far as to say that the atmosphere is more important than the riffs. I think the atmosphere comes as a result of the brilliant riffs, the perfect pacing of the songs, the repetition and general compositional approach as the by the production techniques. And as mentioned above, the choice of brilliant, eerie and timeless artwork.
Yeah it's Hvis... for me, with Filosofem not far behind. Funny to see a thread pop up after giving a few minutes yesterday talking about Burzum. There is something special about it that elevates it above so much other BM but I can't quite put my finger on it. The first album that got me into BM at all was Det Som Engang Var. A fella played it for me on the train and I had never heard anything like it. Bought myself a copy straight away. Again as mentioned the covers on his albums are class as well. It was Belus we were talking about yesterday I may throw it on it's been a while. Never really tried too hard with the prison stuff it just didn't grab me at the time.
I've listened to only Filosofem for about the last ten years; it's just what I think of whenever I want that sound. Must go back and give the other early ones a revisit.
I must be in the minority, I prefer Burzum and Aske - probably because my first Burzum listen was the Misanthropy relissue of the two combined. I'm not a big black metal fan, particularly the raw, deliberately poorly produced stuff but there's something about those early recordings, the atmosphere they generate is just deadly.
Hvis, Det and Filosofem are all excellent too, obviously. I remember getting hassle for a Burzum longsleeve I used to wear: in Sound Cellar from some pisshead (Sid just fucked him out) and at a punk gig in Eamon Doran's (after Vikernes' nazi stuff came out). Skinny was a fan, oddly.
I switch around so much between albums two, three and four it's next to impossible to name my favourite. For years I viewed Burzum as a wall of impenatrable sound but that theory has long been consigned to history. Must make an effort to give a serious listen to their post Filosofem material. Huge kudos too for the art work on their earlier releases. Sometimes a picture does equate to a thousand words. What more needs to be said about Aske?
Quote from: ldj on May 12, 2020, 01:05:43 PM
Bizarrely, I just read on the albums wikipedia page the instrumental was sampled in a song by Gucci Mane and Kanye West :laugh:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ocXKh_uz9A
That is fucking mental :laugh: doesnt sound half bad actually. The royalty for that probably built Vargs forest house.
Regarding Burzum Filosofem is by far and away the favourite album of mine. It has thee perfect Black metal sound with vocals (I find his vocals in the earlier albums a bit much at times), pitch and atmosphere are just incredible. I'd love to know how it would have finished had he not been thrown in jail before completion.
Ive heard bands try and cover burzum. None have been able to capture that sound without sounding karaokeish.
Quote from: Blackout on May 13, 2020, 09:16:01 PM
Ive heard bands try and cover burzum. None have been able to capture that sound without sounding karaokeish.
Ya apart from Gucci Mane and Kanye West.
Did varg actually give them the rights to that?!
Kinda hilarious tbh.
I'd imagine he did, there'd probably be a decent payout waiting for him if it was uncleared.
Love the production on Filosofem though, a perfect example that lofi production doesn't just mean shit.
Quote from: Blackout on May 13, 2020, 09:16:01 PMIve heard bands try and cover burzum. None have been able to capture that sound without sounding karaokeish.
Reverend Bizarre's Dunkelheit cover is brilliant, but they did it in their own style TBF. I can't imagine another band nailing his style.
I have the Filosofem A5 hardback digibook since around 2000/2001. Beside the lyrics on each individual page there is a separate, longer text in Norwegian and German. I've never seen a translation for any of it and had often wondered what it said. Any Google search has proved fruitless. Anyone here got any links to a translation of the booklet text?
Quote from: ldj on May 12, 2020, 01:05:43 PM
Bizarrely, I just read on the albums wikipedia page the instrumental was sampled in a song by Gucci Mane and Kanye West :laugh:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ocXKh_uz9A
There is a picture I saw posted a long time ago on another forum of Kanye West wearing a KPN shirt.
as much as I respect the kurt cobain does black metal crusty genius of burzum, to me it's the few albums he churned out in his late 30s that are truly exceptional
Quote from: mugz on May 22, 2020, 09:25:07 PM
as much as I respect the kurt cobain does black metal crusty genius of burzum, to me it's the few albums he churned out in his late 30s that are truly exceptional
There is a train of thought that Umskiptar is his best work...
any of those 3 from the end of his burzum career are really great though for me fallen is the best by a notch or two
Quote from: mugz on May 22, 2020, 09:25:07 PMhttps://forum.metalwarfare.com/index.php?action=post;quote=23951;topic=1238.15;last_msg=23962
kurt cobain does black metal crusty genius of burzum
Nail on the head there fair play
in a way it's surprising there's not more written about the simultaneous east meets west emergence of grunge and black metal. black metal was the european grunge; the americans mixed folk and blues and country with a delayed discovery of punk, the europeans mixed classical music with thrash metal.... yet there's no sense where people have done a compare/contrast, to my knowledge.
Beyond the very surface similarities you are hinting at, that is distorted guitar, lofi production and a sometimes simplistic approach to song construction (which hardly holds up of you consider the likes of Mayhem, Emperor, Enslaved or Satyricon for example who were more complex by nature) it would be a very thin thesis. Grunge was essentially noisy garage rock/punk. BM came from, as you said, thrash and early death metal, but also took influences from European folk and even electronic music. You could argue a loose similarity in terms of a tendency to nihilism but even then that seemed to have completely different motivations between scenes, where Nirvana was self destructive thematically but Burzum (to use your two examples) had a melancholy for an imagined romantic era. Whatever nihilism that was there was aimed at modern society, but even then, beyond the man himself, the music was never really thematically nihilistic.
that's already more than has been said on the topic up to now. Personally, the musical similarities are there but not massively interrelated; the times, the places, the generations involved, and the social and political backgrounds are much more worth a deep dive. I mean it's only a few years ago that people commonly started viewing post punk and goth and new wave as being much more closely entwined with metal than was ever admitted in the 80s 90s or 00s.
Is your point then that they were somehow intertwined? That they were influencing each other?? Because that's even madder than trying to align them as being similar, contemporaneous youth cultures :laugh:
look it genuinely occurred to me an hour ago that there's something in the idea of looking at how both scenes sprung up, I'm not saying there's a one to one correspondence to any of the music, but I am saying there's definitely some overlap musically, and I'm definitely saying the situational stuff kind of mirrors a lot.
you're essentially dealing with two tail end of the 20th century subcultures that haven't been looked at in the same milieu before to my knowledge, despite the fact to anyone older or younger than us the vast differences you're giving my a hard time over simply wouldn't exist.
social history perspective first and then musical analysis second. in that order I think there's a good article or two to be written.
You could pluck any two cultural phenomena out of the air, whether their timelines corresponded or not, and find vague similarities that tie them together. It just seems like a novel angle as opposed to any sort of true analysis of the situation. But what do I know. Maybe the rise of Nirvana and Burzum was cosmically aligned. Maybe My Dying Bride and Scooter were twins who were separated at birth and their story needs to be told. Maybe it's all just a fart in a sleeping bag.
Got me thinking of My Dying Bride vs Scooter à la Thorns vs Emperor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HALZ6rUh3o
drums sound horrific. not as noticeable on this slower track below which is a lovely song i reckon. Making me want to revisit Umskiptar.
youtube.com/watch?v=FPdXut0rA8o
I hear it yesterday. If it was anyone else I'd say shit but The Count gets a pass.
It comes up under Burzum New
online and separate to his other stuff.
Rebranding at its finest. I was waiting for Kayne to drop some rhymes.
Just searched Burzum on Spotify and up popped a 'burzum NEW' option under the usual Burzum tag, which contained this new song... Back to metal again which is refreshing after he said he couldn't see himself returning to it! Heres a youtube linked for ease of non Spotify users https://youtu.be/plHCMMLnehI?si=Jx82ElMOZVMn9jsK
I listened to it the other day. Like all the new stuff, that is the songs from the most recent album, it sounds a bit half baked. Some really nice ideas that end up going on too long without changing and the production sounds like it needs work. If he finishes those songs and records them properly, ie in Grieghallen, there's the makings of a good album in it I think.
The drum sound is ridiculous on that but I love his guitar playing all the same
I can get past the granny drumming, but the whisper screams are atrocious.
The riffs are nice but the production is so flimsy.
Apparently he changed his legal name to Louis Cachet.
Daft as a brush.
Quote from: Billy Yellin on May 07, 2025, 03:52:12 AMApparently he changed his legal name to Louis Cachet.
An anagram of "catholic use".
Quote from: Billy Yellin on May 07, 2025, 03:52:12 AMI can get past the granny drumming, but the whisper screams are atrocious.
The riffs are nice but the production is so flimsy.
Apparently he changed his legal name to Louis Cachet.
Daft as a brush.
The production is actually fucking shocking
He's using an assumed name? Assure me at least that his pronouns are still hvis/hvim!
I really hope he goes on to the studio with these new songs otherwise they'll end up being little curios that I'll listen to a few times in youtube and forget about. If they get finished in a way that does them justice and get pressed up I could see myself getting mileage out of them.
Quote from: astfgyl on May 10, 2025, 11:34:51 AMQuote from: Billy Yellin on May 07, 2025, 03:52:12 AMI can get past the granny drumming, but the whisper screams are atrocious.
The riffs are nice but the production is so flimsy.
Apparently he changed his legal name to Louis Cachet.
Daft as a brush.
The production is actually fucking shocking
Lads complaining about the production of a Burzum release is giving me a good giggle
Quote from: Yung Led Zeppelin on May 13, 2025, 07:27:56 PMQuote from: astfgyl on May 10, 2025, 11:34:51 AMQuote from: Billy Yellin on May 07, 2025, 03:52:12 AMI can get past the granny drumming, but the whisper screams are atrocious.
The riffs are nice but the production is so flimsy.
Apparently he changed his legal name to Louis Cachet.
Daft as a brush.
The production is actually fucking shocking
Lads complaining about the production of a Burzum release is giving me a good giggle
Fair point lol.
Quote from: Yung Led Zeppelin on May 13, 2025, 07:27:56 PMLads complaining about the production of a Burzum release is giving me a good giggle
Totally fair, but at least the earlier releases had a bit of balls to them. This sounds like his missus is in the other room telling him to shut the fuck up
:laugh:
"Ta gueule Louis!!!"
Yep, the sound is way too basic but the music itself has plenty of potential.
Quote from: Eoin McLove on May 10, 2025, 12:57:41 PMI really hope he goes on to the studio with these new songs otherwise they'll end up being little curios that I'll listen to a few times in youtube and forget about. If they get finished in a way that does them justice and get pressed up I could see myself getting mileage out of them.
Just gave the 4 new ones a proper listen, and really liking them. As you say though, they could do with doing properly.
Unfortunately, I see a quote from his Twitter
" Lately, I have made four new tracks for Burzum. I think they were all pretty good, too, but...
... the RPG roots run too deep to keep this up. The CALL OF THE ANCESTORS draws me back to my original calling.
Yeah, I am back to working on RPGs, and I don't have time for both. Some of you will rejoice. Others won't.
See you around...
ReconQuest > Burzum.
IMAGE: You might see a musician. I see an RPG lover...."
So we may not hear more again for a while.