Burzum - Belus (March 2010)

[Cargést]

I listened to this once, and I thought “what an incredible disappointment”. Now, I’m listening to it again, and I’m thinking “this is fucking awesome”. The first time I listened to it, I was barely conscious, having been awake for twenty seven hours. Now, I’ve slept well, and I actually have the energy to take this album in properly.

To any of you who respect my opinion in the slightest – though I doubt many of you actually know who I am – here’s a bombshell: I think this is better than Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. But then, Hvis Lyset Tar Oss is my least favourite Burzum album, because I’m an intellectually inferior being who prefers the rawer composition of Det Som Engang Var, Aske, and the debut, to the hideous complexities of Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.
Cargast - 20 02 10 - 04:52

Yes, I prefer this to Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.  I'm not joking, this is getting better and better, the more I listen to it, and I think one of the reasons is that I'm listening to it in surround sound, now, instead of shitty headphones I bought from Walmart for $0.99 a year ago.  The bits which I originally thought could be improved are making more and more sense, and I'm not hearing quite so much of the cut/paste fuck ups on the drums.

[Skullduggery]

Any other thoughts/hopes/fears about it?

What I find most interesting is that album will be about/was inspired by Apollo.  Whereas the traditional "patron Gods" of metal have been Dionysus and/or Hades - I suppose you could mention Thor and Odin as well.  Broadly speaking, metal has been about death, darkness, war, storms.  Apollo does NOT represent these things.  Apollo is the god of order and light.  Perhaps this will be metal "post-nihilism."

Isn't chaos an order itself? I mean...even the detection of chaos is order!
You describe 'death' as a known and a foreseeable phenomenon, or 'darkness' or 'war' (which can quite easily be conducted through strategies and tactics). Storms are natural phenomenons that we are able to notice and to identify. War and peace, life and death, light and darkness are associative representations of different types of order I suppose.

As to the album - It seems years of imprisonment haven't damaged the musicality of the man whom we can call the "Socrates who practices music" of the Metal world, or the closest thing to this view. Although, it is certainly apparent that some refinement work is necessary.
The track 'Sverddans' is the weakest in this album. It sounds almost satirical.

[Grim Morrison]

Isn't chaos an order itself? I mean...even the detection of chaos is order!

What we call chaos(if there is a consensus view...) may well have a form of order but if so it is one which is beyond our ability to detect a clear, logical pattern which enables us to see something as "order". Instead, usually, in our limitation and inability to see a clear-cut pattern we label it chaos as opposed to a comprehensible order. The fault may lie with our perception or there may well exist situations where lack of pattern and disorder itself(chaos) holds true with no relation to our perceptive abilities. The detection of chaos is simply the identification of something beyond our understood ideas of order - this does not mean that the detection of chaos is order.

[Skullduggery]

Isn't chaos an order itself? I mean...even the detection of chaos is order!

What we call chaos(if there is a consensus view...) may well have a form of order but if so it is one which is beyond our ability to detect a clear, logical pattern which enables us to see something as "order". Instead, usually, in our limitation and inability to see a clear-cut pattern we label it chaos as opposed to a comprehensible order. The fault may lie with our perception or there may well exist situations where lack of pattern and disorder itself(chaos) holds true with no relation to our perceptive abilities. The detection of chaos is simply the identification of something beyond our understood ideas of order - this does not mean that the detection of chaos is order.

So, essentially, chaos and order are probably something we can't actually 'inductively' deduce into something 'concrete', we can only play with terms and words, which describe things that fit our perception of them? Well, I always found this fascinating. I think this carnival of words and metonymy like "Dionysian" or "Apollonian" bare no 'inward' value, they are only synonymous with words that are representations of things we can define, but find it hard to 'perceive' rightly.
 "Detection is not order" - How's that? I think the word 'order' within this context is problematic, it has at least two-faces - exterior and interior, 'existing' and 'to-be-existing'. Is it not true that 'to detect' is a phenomenon which we can clearly signify as it appears? At least by definition? If I detect a pattern, it doesn't not mean the pattern is indeed 'order' - but it does mean the detection itself is of some order or a part of it? Whether the order is indeed 'order' is a crucial question, and yet - with all the existing variables - it is, perhaps, the closest thing to order. If one is confused and says: "I'm confused" - is he indeed confused? And if he detects this - does it not mean there's 'order' in it?
And, well, of course our senses and perception trick us - this means that anything we may perceive as 'order' is inversely -- looking at a bigger, more detailed and profound picture -- complete chaos? What if this chaos contains 'order' within its supposed arbitrariness? Do we have any measures to 'real' chaos, or 'real' "anything" outside our minds? There might be a big chaotic phenomenon occurring around us, or just order we cannot understand thus we label 'chaos'. We always measure things according to things we know and recognize. That's it. So can we go on and really talk about things we know not and we better stay silent of? (to paraphrase Wittgenstein)

[Grim Morrison]

So, essentially, chaos and order are probably something we can't actually 'inductively' deduce into something 'concrete', we can only play with terms and words, which describe things that fit our perception of them? Well, I always found this fascinating.
 "Detection is not order" - How's that? I think the word 'order' within this context is problematic, it has at least two-faces - exterior and interior, 'existing' and 'to-be-existing'.
And, well, of course our senses and perception trick us - this means that anything we may perceive as 'order' is inversely -- looking at a bigger, more detailed and profound picture -- complete chaos? Do we have any measures to 'real' chaos, or 'real' "anything" outside our minds? There might be a big chaotic phenomenon occurring around us, or just order we cannot understand thus we label 'chaos'. We always measure things according to things we know and recognize. That's it. So can we go on and really talk about things we know not and we better stay silent of? (to paraphrase Wittgenstein)

What I meant was detecting "chaos" won't make it order. It'll still remain chaos, something beyond logical explanation.

As for playing with words and terms, that's why I mentioned "if there is a consensus view". If X sees greater levels of patterns than Y, something chaotic to Y will still be understandable to X.

What we may perceive as order at one level will remain so at any greater level. If you are "looking at a bigger, more detailed and profound picture" this earlier level of order is seen as becoming a small part of the greater whole. It may, in certain cases, be an aberration to the whole once you see the greater picture, but this does not mean that what you saw before as order is now chaos - it will simply have lost its earlier level of importance/relevance because you are now seeing a "bigger picture". Looking at a map and successively uncovering larger portions of land may be an example. That's what I am getting at.

What you say about "senses and perception trick us" or "real" is more in line with concepts of illusion/maya. Let's leave that aside for now. Suffice to say, here it is not about the "reality" of the issue, more about its complexity and thus our ability to comprehend it or not. That is all I was writing about. Re-read my previous post with this clarification in mind.

Sorry for leading this off-topic.

[Jim Necroslaughter]

and to think:  this album was almost called "The White God!"  Yeeesh, what an embarassment THAT would have been.  I figure if a guy's got the BALLS to call his album The White God, he must be ABSOLUTELY SURE that he can back it up.

Any other thoughts/hopes/fears about it?

What I find most interesting is that album will be about/was inspired by Apollo.  Whereas the traditional "patron Gods" of metal have been Dionysus and/or Hades - I suppose you could mention Thor and Odin as well.  Broadly speaking, metal has been about death, darkness, war, storms.  Apollo does NOT represent these things.  Apollo is the god of order and light.  Perhaps this will be metal "post-nihilism."

Isn't chaos an order itself? I mean...even the detection of chaos is order!
You describe 'death' as a known and a foreseeable phenomenon, or 'darkness' or 'war' (which can quite easily be conducted through strategies and tactics). Storms are natural phenomenons that we are able to notice and to identify. War and peace, life and death, light and darkness are associative representations of different types of order I suppose.

I think I see what you're saying - a well conducted war, for instance, would be conducted in an ORDERLY fashion (is this kind of what you're getting at?).  My above quote was sort of "off the cuff," and obviously exposes my lack of deep understading of Greek mythology.  I was just "spit-balling" in regards to what we might expect from the album given that it was called "White God" or "Belus," and was "inspired" by Apollo and his Indo-European variants.  I just figured an artist like Varg would not name his album carelessly in the sense that the album title would "match" the music.  So in this case, I was expecting a more SOLAR sounding album as opposed to the traditional NOCTURNAL sound of black metal.  The album "Thousand Swords," to me, really achieves that "solar" sound.  So, although Thousand Swords is a truly unique and one of a kind album, I do feel it is possible (and, perhaps, advisable) for "black" metal to explore the "white" or "solar" side of itself.  Back in November it seemd like an interesting angle for discussion.  I suppose, to be fair, there are some "solar" moments on Belus (I've listened to it only once), but like I said, if you have the balls to call the album "White God" (at one point),  you better back it up and completely leave behind the the "Black" sound and reveal a whole new direction for black metal to go in.

Well, anyway, here's to me studying up on my Greek and Norse mythology.

[Sepulchral Voice]

I’m an intellectually inferior being who prefers the rawer composition of Det Som Engang Var, Aske, and the debut.

You're not the only one:

What are your top five favorite albums?
This is actually the hardest question on here, but I'll give it a stab.
1. von Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker - Beethoven's Nine Symphonies (an album doesn't mean "a single disc," does it?)
2. Burzum - Burzum/Aske
3. Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine
4. Tangerine Dream - Atem
5. Ildjarn-Nidhogg - S/T

[Cargést]

Hvis Lyset Tar Oss seems to me to be far more directed, far more specialised, than the earlier releases, and that is its downfall, for, while the elucidation it delivers is noteworthy, it doesn't cover nearly as great a scope as the previous two albums.  It is a narrow road through a dense forest, which leads to an ultimate destination - who's to say that you ever intended to start down that road in the first place?  Perhaps you're entirely uninterested in the destination to which that road leads.  Det Som Engang Var, though, is like falling into an endless cavern, which deepens, widens, and expands as you traverse its deeps.  The debut is a vast swampland, with no discernible objective.

[My AIDS, Your Arse]

I barely gave the new album a couple listens, and it sounds cute and all, but so far this one unreleased Burzum song is more epic than the entire new album.

[Cargést]

I would argue that "epic" isn't the aim of Belus.

[Sepulchral Voice]

I barely gave the new album a couple listens, and it sounds cute and all, but so far this one unreleased Burzum song is more epic than the entire new album.

Makes sense as this was intended to be track four on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.

[E]

Makes sense as this was intended to be track four on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.

...which album already covers half of this track, melody-wise. The rest is heard before in  '...Sad Spirit' etc. Good song, but I can see why this one would be deemed superfluous.

[Conservationist]

since this is probably the last of the truely great metallers of old to sell out/fail, can we at last declare a generation of metal dead and buried??
the past is dead and all that is broken belongs to it. whats eternal belongs to us, the rest is kipple. long live the future.

I think this is what's really going on with the drama over this.

We all want black metal to die in two ways:
 (a) No longer be the domain of Generation X
 (b) Newer generations need to stop aping the past, because so far, they haven't succeeded

It's time to move on -- toward the eternal, which can be re-discovered in any generation. And to admit that neo-Nazi movements are failures and turn everything they touch into bitterness, failure and misery.

[Sammaellofi]

This thread seems rather odd to me.  Defending Hvis Lyset Tar Oss as if it needs any defending for it's "lack of scope".


Beherit's amazing album, which pepople already seem to be turning on, really gave me hope for a new black metal movement, along with the new movie.  I guess what Nietzsche says about "great events" is true.  Things don't ever fall right into place in that way.  They only seem to because of the true brilliance that goes on in man's stillest hours.  I listen to the last Beherit and cringe at the idea that something this good is going to later be seen as just some fairly decent album from 09 or even worse, just a blip on the screen.  


I was waiting to hear the new Burzum album until the reviews were in, and I still haven't listened to it yet and maybe I won't.  

[Arctic Sun]

 I'm not trying to steer this topic off course, but the new Beherit was amazing?  Not really.  It just didn't suck, and it has some character or personality.  It's like Pestilence at best in that respect, but the release happened to have occurred over a decade after the scene imploded so it sounds good by comparison.