I know it's not news to anyone around here, but I'm a Burzum fanboy and feel it is only right that I dedicate at least one post out of the month to one of the genres greatest acts. Rather than repeating my opinions on Varg's early albums and emphasizing just how important they were to the overall growth of the genre, I've decided instead to talk a bit about his later work, in particular his post 2010 era releases.
It is very common amongst black metal fans to refer to "early Burzum" as every thing from the self-titled debut up until 1996's Filosofem. You see, from then on not only did Varg become more and more of a controversial figure, but he also began diving deeper and deeper into the world of ambient music. Of course anyone familiar with his catalogue of music will know elements of dark ambient always surfaced during his early career, but it wasn't until the late 90s and onward that he began dedicating entire albums to crafting that sound.
For the sake of this month being based around black metal, we will ignore the ambient material, and instead focus simply on his return to the genre he helped create. In particular, I will be using this post to focus on 2010s
Belus and 2011s
Fallen, two albums which I believe are far too frequently forgotten within the dismissal of Varg Vikernes later material.
The first thing to consider when going into these albums is how both the genre and Varg have changed over the years. It would be a bit foolish to go into these releases expecting an album that sounds similar to Hvis lyset or Filosofem. The fact of the matter is Varg revolutionized extreme metal with his production style on the early material and also planted seeds for the future of atmo black metal. In these two albums, he is not looking to re-up on his ways of past, he is instead presenting a much more modern sounding atmospheric black metal effort without as much of an emphasis on raw production.
One listen to Glemselens Elv should give the listener a look into how Varg has evolved as a musician, incorporating some truly beautiful soundscapes into his song writing while staying true to those hypnotically repetitive riffs he has showed us time and time again.
On the follow-up to
Belus,
Fallen, you can find Varg experimenting with the production and looking to restore a little bit of that rawness from his earlier career. What is most interesting about this album is how it manages to take elements from both his early career and his last album, combining a rawer production style and some of his nastiest vocals yet with some lovely melodies, clean vocals, spoken word passages, and more. My favourite cut from this album is Jeg Faller, a track that almost seems to take a bit of inspiration from the DSBM scene.
I can understand that these albums might not appeal to everyone, but surely they are worth giving a listen and forming your own opinion on, rather than assuming they fall into the same category as the rest of Varg's later works.