Burzum - Umskiptar

[christopher]

I don't think the album is that bad.  I found the piano track and a few of the others memorable and enjoyable.

He is emphasizing the "skaldic metal" concept on his website.  The man has earned my respect enough that I will listen to it as intended, with a full understanding of the lyrics, before I negatively judge the album.  I don't speak the language, and I am not at all familiar with Völuspá.

Has anyone posted the English translation of Völuspá from his book?

[christopher]

  The vocals on this one however are more important than on any other album, with a total of 66 stanzas, some of them even repeated a few times, making up the lyrics of the album. The vocals are very important for the special atmosphere and are more important than on any other Burzum album, and more varied too – and as honest as it gets

[Eleison]

I don't think the album is that bad.

This is the new standard of black metal, if its not completely incompetent it must be worth listening to.  No one ever said that the new Burzum albums were terrible by the general standard of modern black metal, but I've never heard anyone describe his early work as "not that bad".

[hoodwink]

this album is an insurmountable load of drek couched in flimsy "skaldic" mythos.  

Short review: boring.

for as much of a fan I am of your writing, in certain cases, a single sentence works because it:
(a) doesn't inadvertently convey gravity to rubbish
(b) doesn't mask the juvenile aims of the artist

so, in this case, "boring" is really all that's worth being said about this record.  

[aquarius]

I don't think using the norse poetry is completely unworkable when you consider how Summoning were able to adapt Tolkiens poetry to great effect. Needless to say Burzums success was on a completely different wavelength from Summoning; namely, a subconscious one. He failed here in that his music became too self-conscious and judging from interviews, too stubborn and self-righteous. It's justification to himself that he can lazily churn out any rubbish and stand becond criticism, but meanwhile he has disgraced the great norse tradition of the skald.

[Cargést]

I also think it needs moar screamcrying, whoever deleted Veritas's post (even if it was Veritas).  The screamcry in this album is the best, most memorable part about it.

[Veritas]

Can you screamcry?


(didn't realise this album actually did have a screamcry. Haven't listened yet)

[Cargést]

Yep, screamcrying is fun.  Check out some of the old Fel stuff for screamcrying.

[Nightspirit]

I don't think the album is that bad.

This is the new standard of black metal, if its not completely incompetent it must be worth listening to.  No one ever said that the new Burzum albums were terrible by the general standard of modern black metal, but I've never heard anyone describe his early work as "not that bad".

This is very insightful; I like it. I dislike the current demographic that thinks this way, as I'm a big fan of orthodoxy. The standards have severely dropped. Most blokes I know re-listen to the albums that contain unending replay value. I also have an issue with the "music-first" mentality of kids these days, referring to the people who believe it appropriate to consider themselves enthusiastic about a certain album product but not its SYMBOL. I think this failure particularly signifies the complete absence of discipline in the Black Metal subculture, referring from general maturity of character to the disorganized "ideology" (if it can be called that) of the rambling, bambling, blundering privileged that live in the former shade of Hessian-dominated art.

Like all forms of music ruined by populism, something will come out every now and then that feels right. Unless the caliber of the Black Metal community improves, (ie: becomes more fanatic, empowering, anti-individual and reasserts for all intensive purposes, a sense of cooperation against capital religion, debilitating philosophy and all things mundane) I do not foresee innovation anytime soon.

[August]

This new string of albums makes me wonder what exactly he was talking about in jail while bashing the state of current black metal. From reading all those big words I figured we'd either see a progression from his ambient work or something entirely new and groundbreaking, but ironically what we get is some kind of Drudkh metal.