Burzum - Belus

[Cargést]

Just relistened to this.  It dies with Sverddans, and dies again by the end of Morgenroede, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this album.  It doesn't reach the same heights as Hvis Lyset Tar Oss or Det Som Engang Var, and isn't as fresh/exciting/retarded as the debut and Aske, but it's still way above most of the Metal released over the past ten years.

Much better than Fallen.

[Ksatria/Gang_Rapist]

I'm a defender of this list

http://www.examiner.com/metal-music-in-houston/best-metal-of-the-decade-1999-2009

and Belus doesn't touch it even nearly, though it is entertaining.

[LD50]

Just relistened to this.  It dies with Sverddans, and dies again by the end of Morgenroede, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this album.  It doesn't reach the same heights as Hvis Lyset Tar Oss or Det Som Engang Var, and isn't as fresh/exciting/retarded as the debut and Aske, but it's still way above most of the Metal released over the past ten years.

Much better than Fallen.

And maybe not worse than filosofem, despite of a completely mistaken production, and the vocal style.

[lafindumonde]

I just got off the phone with Varg, and I really had sympathy for the guy.

He knows he half-assed the album, but he hoped true Burzum fans would understand. He gets no royalties from the earlier albums, just got out of prison, not even McDonalds or the Corner Kebab would hire him. He's flat broke, plus they're expecting him to pay child support! Poor guy figured if he released some older material while focusing on a brighter-side-of-life Philosophy (gotta try to stay optimistic!) a lot of his problems would finally go away. Basically the only guys who would talk to him were the record execs. Ah well, I'd say most people in his position would have done the same thing.

[LD50]

I just got off the phone with Varg, and I really had sympathy for the guy.

He knows he half-assed the album, but he hoped true Burzum fans would understand. He gets no royalties from the earlier albums, just got out of prison, not even McDonalds or the Corner Kebab would hire him. He's flat broke, plus they're expecting him to pay child support! Poor guy figured if he released some older material while focusing on a brighter-side-of-life Philosophy (gotta try to stay optimistic!) a lot of his problems would finally go away. Basically the only guys who would talk to him were the record execs. Ah well, I'd say most people in his position would have done the same thing.

Right, that's why I said if ppl seriously had expected him to behave a different way...

And I really think Filosofem hasn't more to offer than Belus, but previous albums are another history

[Conservationist]

I just got off the phone with Varg, and I really had sympathy for the guy.

He knows he half-assed the album, but he hoped true Burzum fans would understand. He gets no royalties from the earlier albums, just got out of prison, not even McDonalds or the Corner Kebab would hire him. He's flat broke, plus they're expecting him to pay child support! Poor guy figured if he released some older material while focusing on a brighter-side-of-life Philosophy (gotta try to stay optimistic!) a lot of his problems would finally go away. Basically the only guys who would talk to him were the record execs. Ah well, I'd say most people in his position would have done the same thing.

He made an error in doing this. He ruined the good name of Burzum for a cash-in.

Better to just do a covers album.

[aquarius]

I just got off the phone with Varg, and I really had sympathy for the guy.

He knows he half-assed the album, but he hoped true Burzum fans would understand. He gets no royalties from the earlier albums, just got out of prison, not even McDonalds or the Corner Kebab would hire him. He's flat broke, plus they're expecting him to pay child support! Poor guy figured if he released some older material while focusing on a brighter-side-of-life Philosophy (gotta try to stay optimistic!) a lot of his problems would finally go away. Basically the only guys who would talk to him were the record execs. Ah well, I'd say most people in his position would have done the same thing.

Unfortunately that's not even true. He actually believes the new stuff is better, subconsciously he has become extremely disillusioned and desperately tries to bridge the gap between the quality/spirit of past works with competence in technique, but it doesn't even remotely hold up to music with spirit (and the latest album of re-recorded works will really cement that fact). At this point it is obvious he took the path of least resistance and should probably have concentrated on political stuff instead.

[hoodwink]

I just got off the phone with Varg, and I really had sympathy for the guy.

He knows he half-assed the album, but he hoped true Burzum fans would understand. He gets no royalties from the earlier albums, just got out of prison, not even McDonalds or the Corner Kebab would hire him. He's flat broke, plus they're expecting him to pay child support! Poor guy figured if he released some older material while focusing on a brighter-side-of-life Philosophy (gotta try to stay optimistic!) a lot of his problems would finally go away. Basically the only guys who would talk to him were the record execs. Ah well, I'd say most people in his position would have done the same thing.

Unfortunately that's not even true. He actually believes the new stuff is better, subconsciously he has become extremely disillusioned and desperately tries to bridge the gap between the quality/spirit of past works with competence in technique, but it doesn't even remotely hold up to music with spirit (and the latest album of re-recorded works will really cement that fact). At this point it is obvious he took the path of least resistance and should probably have concentrated on political stuff instead.

In short, Varg needs to be forgiven for what's he done with Belus, Fallen and this latest hunk of mediocrity.  Whether you agree with his motives or not, Varg Vikernes is paying the price for having conviction enough to act, and consequently finds himself in the bleakest depths of a situation most on this forum could never hope to comprehend.  Varg 2011 is what happens when you make decisions hoping to trigger an evolutionary leap but are forced to come crawling back to the system you thought you'd surmounted.  The much larger prison Varg will reside in for the rest of his life is one that savagely resists and resents being shunned, and will opportunistically take any slight advantage to shackle one permanently.  

I know nothing of Varg's situation re: paying child support, but as soon as he decided to impregnate someone, he ceded any control of his life.  The same is true to an extent once he was tried and convicted of killing Euronymous.  When he was caught and subsequently imprisoned, he became the state's problem, and, by extension, the state's property.  So, he now finds himself in a situation where he's required to forfeit any semblance of values or dignity in order to meet very real-world obligations.  These obligations don't take kindly to talk of Norse mythology or "trve black metal."  Those obligations (and the system that propounds them) have transformed Varg's philosophical leanings into the idle musings of so many deadbeats.  The people he thought he'd  burned down with the Fantoft Stave Church were all just biding their time until the arsonist inevitably returned, hat in hand, to ask for their mercy.  Once the process is complete, Varg Vikernes is reborn as just another undereducated dreamer, but with a criminal record and socially-crippling associations.  His sole responsibility now is to make ends meet, so if he shits all over his "legacy," so be it; once you're in the position he's in, artistic integrity is a luxury not worth abiding.  

None of this is said with the slightest degree of bitterness or gloating - I genuinely feel for Varg and am sympathetic to his plight.  Unfortunately, reality doesn't look as kindly on outliers as do many of us on this forum, myself included.  

[death metal black metal]

I heard the new version of "Ea, Lord of the Depths." -1- There was no need to re-record it; -2- the re-recording adds nothing and takes a lot away, while "standardizing" this for rock listeners. It reminds me of what Absurd did with their 15-years-war CD. I respect both these musicians to a great degree.

I will now advance a controversial idea:

Association with neo-Nazi groups destroys every goddamn thing it touches.

I am not arguing against Nazism here, although frankly I find losing a war so that you can carry out a genocide to be sort of silly; I am not a Nazi and I refute their ideology because -1- it was not extreme enough and -2- it was destructive in many ways, most notably The Holocaust but also in losing to a joint American/Russian team. That's sort of the definition of incompetence there.

However, neo-Nazi groups in general destroy people by forcing them to become social outcasts, convincing them of the need for an apocalyptic race war, and then once they've bought that load of shit, abandoning them as soon as they either get busted (for they will most likely turn informant) or fail to be "extreme" enough, which can be as simple as not hating black people or Jewish people.

Racism and hatred are not the answer. To my mind, traditional conservatism with a huge dose of futurism is. This may include nationalism, but nationalism does not include hatred. It is simply a superior principle for the design of civilizations, or at least part of that principle. Anti-racism and anti-hatred are also not the answer. These are non-questions and crusades in search of a goal.

Varg is in a bad way. We offered him content control over Burzum.com, and he approved everything on the site, then had a tantrum and demanded we delete the site. There is no honor in his behavior anymore, and no poetry in his soul, which is why new Burzum sucks and this re-release sucks and everything he's going to do from now on will be pandering to the whorish crowd, which is exactly what he never wanted to do as a youthful idealist. By doing so, he "appears" to refute his ideals, although I'll never believe that.

[Svmmoned]

Mostly agreed. There is a real problem with finding something worthy within neo-nazism. However Jews are problematic and destructive to things you proposed as ideals, at least as long as they are operating within other societies. It repeats over and over again, but some still claim that remedy is even more of what created this unhealthy situation. It is - if you want to sacrifice something important or if you are a propagator of unlimited mercifulness. Either we are traditionalists and we know how to take clues from history or lets ignore it entirely and abandon pretense. Nazism didn't destroyed either Absurd, Veles, Graveland or Darkthrone, it helped to reorient spirit of metal from christian dualism. Agree that it was on lower levels of emanation of greater ideas as Reich itself was such simplified and institutionalized lower form. What destroyed their relevancy (Graveland is still solid, it just happens that I don't want to listen to it) is metal life span. As in case of Burzum and Morbid Angel it was conservated/suspended for long time and now it strikes with double force. Carcass, At the Gates, Atrocity, Celtic Frost (there were worse cases but somehow I can't recall them now) - it's the same story but without such hiatus. Darkthrone tried to fight against that. What you're talking about is more similar to problem with skinhead, christian and extreme leftist music. Take all positive inspiration which Third Reich (as more modern connector with the past) could possibly give and leave the rest.

I would say that what it takes to make a change is both love and hatred (full spectrum as many nationalists of 20th century noted) and being social outcast, at least on some spiritual level, but not as a result of weakness, incapability or sociopathy, in a manner of basement dweller. Rather simply as a result of being member of other, smaller caste placed within vast ocean of mediocrity, without cultural tools or social mechanisms to organize it. I think it's unavoidable and natural proportion, let's not pretend anything. They must however work within such context despite of being of other breed. It's also natural and it's their proper function. Fact that you don't love Jesus or thinks that people aren't equal also makes you a social outcast, especially when your surrounding happen to be inferior, which doesn't necessary means that you don't have a point.

I liked that back then:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060107011622/http://www.thepaganfront.com/pf.php?show=articles&article=1
http://web.archive.org/web/20051126155506/http://www.anus.com/metal/about/metal/nsbm_and_black_metal_after_1998.html

And I think that Narrow Squirting Bowel Movement.org was a great testament to absolutely last relevant movement in black metal and a handful of bands (who needs more, after all it was always like that) representing it. And we know that bands originally, actually quite exaggeratedly, maybe maliciously, called N.S.B.M. were different than today's mass produced simple minded nazi/pagan propaganda. It should be brought back. Maybe as a tool against Der Stuermers and Nokturnal Mortums or satanist "nihilists".

As always, sorry for my gradually weakening skill in language.

[death metal black metal]

It's necessary to separate personal politics from effective politics that address the nation as a whole.

A small group of outcasts is not useful; a productive plan for the future is.

Nazism is not that. In fact, everything it touches turns to waste. Once people step into the mindset of viewing life by race-only, all becomes skewed to that obsession.

Of course, all leftism/liberalism is insane. Not as dangerous as Nazism, but more likely to destroy a civilization. Nazism did not destroy Germany; liberalism will. All current mainstream conservatives are also failures because they do not heed conservative principles. All Greens are warmed-over leftists. All anarchists are impractical and/or sociopathic.

However, this doesn't touch the fact that Nazism is blight that encourages people to become race fanatics and commit impractical acts of violence.

[Cargést]

Nazism is not that. In fact, everything it touches turns to waste. Once people step into the mindset of viewing life by race-only, all becomes skewed to that obsession.

I stopped reading here.  What the fuck is this?  This anti-Nazism crap is total and utter bollocks, primarily because YOU'RE ONLY FOCUSING ON ONE FUCKING PART OF THEIR PLATFORM.  Talk about hypocricy.  "Oh, they're racits!!1!1, so we're going to ignore ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that they've ever said or supported".

I apologise for seeming slightly angered by the vacuity of your post, but the quality is so totally absent that I cannot help but feel a righteous fury.

[hoodwink]

Nazism is not that. In fact, everything it touches turns to waste. Once people step into the mindset of viewing life by race-only, all becomes skewed to that obsession.

I stopped reading here.  What the fuck is this?  This anti-Nazism crap is total and utter bollocks, primarily because YOU'RE ONLY FOCUSING ON ONE FUCKING PART OF THEIR PLATFORM.  Talk about hypocricy.  "Oh, they're racits!!1!1, so we're going to ignore ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that they've ever said or supported".

I apologise for seeming slightly angered by the vacuity of your post, but the quality is so totally absent that I cannot help but feel a righteous fury.

his statement was accurate.  the court of public opinion or whatever you choose to call it has Varg by the short hairs now because certain affiliations make him a soft target.  this is the same reason many of the bands who're still active and were recording during the Norwegian black metal heyday have gone to great lengths to act as if they're pasts don't exist.  for the public to reach a verdict on the worth of an individual - and this goes quintuple when the individual is in a vulnerable state - they focus only on the most obvious and inflammatory aspects of the individual.  once you're branded with a label like "Nazi," it's virtually impossible to live down, regardless of the extent (or even accuracy) of the affiliation.  simplistic reasoning doesn't care about anything more than "ONE FUCKING PART OF THEIR PLATFORM."  that one part is sufficient to brand the person as a pariah.  most people are far less perceptive than you're giving them credit for, particularly when the timeless allure of incendiary words presents itself. 

also, I'm inclined to agree with was said earlier about Varg's politics not really being abandoned - I just don't think he has much of a choice other than to do what he's doing now.

[Cargést]

We're not talking about the perceptions of proles, we're talking about reality as is, and the statements in the post above my last are total, abominable blunders.  If, indeed, we are talking about the perceptions of proles, I've clearly been here way too long.

[fallot]

Nazism is not that. In fact, everything it touches turns to waste. Once people step into the mindset of viewing life by race-only, all becomes skewed to that obsession.

I stopped reading here.  What the fuck is this?  This anti-Nazism crap is total and utter bollocks, primarily because YOU'RE ONLY FOCUSING ON ONE FUCKING PART OF THEIR PLATFORM.  Talk about hypocricy.  "Oh, they're racits!!1!1, so we're going to ignore ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that they've ever said or supported".

I apologise for seeming slightly angered by the vacuity of your post, but the quality is so totally absent that I cannot help but feel a righteous fury.

What I have understood: there may be truths in Nazism, but when the primary viewpoint is race everything is viewed through that perspective. It colors perception to the point that reality is abandoned, (despite vociferous claims of actually representing reality), leading to actions without benefit, or actions that are directly harmful. The rule should be; ignore nothing, but reject mindsets that obscure the truth or that can never truly be practical (perhaps a definition of irrationality in a way?). Whatever answers Nazism may have, as personal politics it is worthless. Is this not supported by history (post WW2)? By just looking at fucking Stormfront and seeing a morass of idiocy and negativity that is accepted because it is palatable to the mindset? Hatred at the expense of the intellect and pragmatism.