Written by Guest on 11.05.2012 at 18:20
While I think this is way too low I'm just gonna remind myself what Beherit did to me with Engram and how I reacted to it.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 11.05.2012 at 18:27
This IS shit. It's just that to me it's not as smelly.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 11.05.2012 at 18:29

Written by X-Ray Rod on 11.05.2012 at 18:27
This IS shit. It's just that to me it's not as smelly.

There needs to be a picture of a guy closely examining this album with the caption "Yep, it's shit."

Written by strade on 11.05.2012 at 18:37
I don't see any way in which this band "pulled a Metallica." That simply doesn't make sense to me. At the very worst it's average ambient black metal. Any worse of a judgment would come from name recognition.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 11.05.2012 at 18:43

Written by strade on 11.05.2012 at 18:37
I don't see any way in which this band "pulled a Metallica." That simply doesn't make sense to me. At the very worst it's average ambient black metal. Any worse of a judgment would come from name recognition.

Metallica's back catalog is filled with what many perceive as "classics", much like Burzum's back catalog.

Then Varg went to prison and released two of his (then-) worst releases, similar to Load/Re-Load for Metallica (without the whole prison/self-defense thing).

Metallica tried to return to their roots with Death Magnetic but didn't recapture their former glory. Varg did the same with his post-prison releases.

Metallica dumbed themselves down to the point of being pretentious with Lou Reed. Varg did the same by himself with this.

Sure it has a little to do with the name... being that it's Burzum and I expected at least "mediocre" work from him as opposed to something completely watered down and simplified like this. At the end of the day if this is released by anyone else, maybe I give it a 4 (at best), but the sentiments in my review wouldn't change at all.

Written by Guest on 11.05.2012 at 18:51
Sounds like you enjoyed Somber Eyes' album more than this, Troy.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 11.05.2012 at 18:54

Expectations are completely different.

Written by Unhealer on 11.05.2012 at 18:58
So you finally took this review out of your system I heard some tracks of this album and they sounded a lot like you describe them, yet I never took the time to check out Burzum's classics so I can't compare (Yeah, I know I should). Your Metallica-Burzum comparison sounded a little bit try-hard, btw. Again, based only on things I read of Varg/Burzum.

Written by strade on 11.05.2012 at 18:50
The albums people consider the masterpieces were fairly simple themselves as far as I'm concerned.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 11.05.2012 at 19:04

As for the try-hard comparison... I'm not sure what you mean by that. I don't think I'm trying to achieve some sort of image or whatever by comparing two popular bands' decline in terms of quality over the years. :/

Written by X-Ray Rod on 11.05.2012 at 19:06

Written by strade on 11.05.2012 at 18:50
The albums people consider the masterpieces were fairly simple themselves as far as I'm concerned.

That's not the same thing. The music of those albums was meant to be simplistic. This time, it's obvious that Varg tried to do something far more ambitious and failed horribly at that. Considering the style this album tries to evoke which is of the "epic", "viking" kind of black metal... this IS very simplified.

Written by Unhealer on 11.05.2012 at 19:10
Oh, that is not what I meant... I probably used the wrong word. I meant you are trying hard to make the whole comparison sound coherent. Comparing Varg's prison records with Load/Reload sounds a little bit exaggerated to me.

Written by strade on 11.05.2012 at 19:11
I don't think this release is ambitious in any way.

Written by EdguyAsFuck on 11.05.2012 at 19:22

Okay, this review is very poorly written but I do kinda agree about this album - it's a boring, bloated mess. I thought Fallen was a step in the right direction (more memorable melodies and concise songwriting), but this just falls straight back into what brought Belus down for me, which is meandering, vanilla-grade mediocrity. This shit might have been passable in the early 90s, but Varg is so far up his own ass that he's still under the impression that current Burzum is in any way relevant given the remarkable amount of growth and innovation that black metal has seen in the last 10-15 years.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 11.05.2012 at 19:30
Although I don't find anything particularly poor about this review.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 11.05.2012 at 19:36
(Maybe it's because I said shit too many times...)

Written by X-Ray Rod on 11.05.2012 at 19:38
I don't know... I thought the main intention of the overuse of the word shit was because of the first metaphor in the beginning of the review, so it felt natural xD

Written by Troy Killjoy on 11.05.2012 at 19:40

Well that was the intent, although sometimes when I try to incorporate these stupid artsy elements it blows up in my face.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 11.05.2012 at 19:43
Torsofuck would be proud of you!

Written by InnerSelf on 11.05.2012 at 20:01
The first couple of songs kinda "exited" me

Written by X-Ray Rod on 11.05.2012 at 19:30

Written by EdguyAsFuck on 11.05.2012 at 19:22

Okay, this review is very poorly written but I do kinda agree about this album - it's a boring, bloated mess. I thought Fallen was a step in the right direction (more memorable melodies and concise songwriting), but this just falls straight back into what brought Belus down for me, which is meandering, vanilla-grade mediocrity. This shit might have been passable in the early 90s, but Varg is so far up his own ass that he's still under the impression that current Burzum is in any way relevant given the remarkable amount of growth and innovation that black metal has seen in the last 10-15 years.

Agree with all this. Although I don't find anything particularly poor about this review.