March 10, 2010

Reviewer: Matt

The return of Burzum is a significant event that has generated enormous internet chatter.  From the shenanigans over the album title, to the wildly divergent opinions on the album’s quality from those who claimed to have heard it prior to the official leak in late February, to the debate over whether the thirty second Amazon clips that failed to impress many were an appropriate basis on which to form an opinion, all signs pointed to a controversial album.

Early reports said Belus was Vikernes’s best ever, his worst ever, a tremendous success, a total disappointment, similar to Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, similar to Filosofem, totally unique.  Unsurprisingly most of the opinions turned out incompetent, as Belus is really none of those.  What Belus is however is a totally average album, a respectable comeback, but regrettably an affirmation that black metal is best made in the passion of youth.  Belus is far from terrible, but it’s all but inconsequential in light of Burzum’s back catalogue, as Vikernes made two major missteps.

The most glaring fault with Belus is its inconsistency.  Vikernes recorded everything from the self-titled to Filosofem in little over a year, but it’s Belus that feels rushed and incomplete.  “Belus' Død” and “Glemselens Elv” begin the album nicely in a brooding Filosofem style, but halfway through the latter track some badly off-key and poorly arranged clean vocal lines appear out of nowhere, doing nothing but detracting from the meditative atmosphere.  The same in “Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning”, where interrupting a great thrashing introductory riff is a spoken word interlude transitioning to a weak upbeat rhythm.  Then there’s “Sverddans”, which I’m assuming is the alleged Uruk-Hai song re-written for Belus and is decent enough, but this early Bathory homage feels awkward amongst black metal so unapologetically “modern” in composition and production.

Secondly, where Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem were repetitive but harnessed cyclic arrangements of riffs to create ritualistic ambient music that developed a theme over the course of long songs, Belus relies on repetition of riffs but the repetition achieves no broader compositional significance.  Several songs, including the highlight of the album “Keliohesten”, follow a pattern of a two cycles of two main riffs interrupted by a brief transitioning interlude.  The last two tracks are an utter chore to get through: long monotonous songs that repeat one main riff while additional guitar tracks chime in with embellishments to construct a harmonically complex wall of sound, but drone on for far too much time with no direction.  The “sounds” is great, particularly with the beaming production, but it chokes on its own redundancy.  These final tracks recall Slavic black metal bands such as Drudkh and Lucifugum at their worst.  Whether Vikernes was imitating those bands or truly hadn’t heard any black metal since Transylvanian Hunger and arrived at the same point by the same reductive take on his own landmark albums is uncertain, but these tracks epitomize the failings of Burzum-imitators, and it’s disappointing to realize that Vikernes has so clearly lost touch with his muse.

All that said, Vikernes’s heart was clearly in this project, so his legacy remains untarnished by Belus. And though history will likely regard it as even less significant than Dauði Baldrs and Hliðskjálf, Belus has enough solid moments to warrant a listen.  Indeed, aside from the brief detours into discomfiting clean vocals and outtakes from the late ‘80s, the album is fairly good until the tortuous final two tracks.  Ultimately Burzum’s return is anticlimactic, as Belus is neither as good as we hoped nor as bad as we feared, leaving listeners indifferent to whether Vikernes marches onward.        

Release Date: March 8, 2010
Label: Byelobog Productions

TRACK LISTING

1.  Leukes Renkespill (Introduksjon)
2.  Belus' Død
3.  Glemselens Elv
4.  Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning
5.  Sverddans
6.  Keliohesten
7.  Morgenrøde
8.  Belus' Tilbakekomst

Total playing time:  50:30

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Burzum - Belus