Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
Review: On this album Burzum evolves to a simplicity of rhythmic communication under a dark mood suspended in the ambient tones of distorted guitar, but re-introduces thematic narration to make the album that raised the bar for black metal so much that it forced other bands back toward less ambitious works. Recombinations of scale fragments balance a nihilism of tonal equality with a chaotic will to melody, building each song from progressions of simple riffs that emphasize a pulse in their dominant strokes.
In this, Hvis Lyset Tar Oss comes closest to achieving the ideal of the ancient Greeks: an epic poem set to music and choreographed to the motions of actors on a stage, telling a story that is both literal and of mythic symbolism, which Burzum expresses through motif slices that resemble the leitmotifs of Richard Wagner. The listener becomes enmeshed into these tracks and subsequently shocked awake when their evocative structures unfold and implode, blooming a wistful moment of both realization and emotion, resignation and resistance.
Of four tracks, three are lengthy (11, 8 and 15 minute) minimalist epics of driving technoesque beats and strobing guitar that leaves a passage of time resonating with the entirety of the greater phrase which in its own subtle way shares the fundamentals of each component phrase. Emergent ideas project and converge merging with a distant reality as these songs articulate their pain; then into the cold of silence drops a sparse ambient keyboard piece of ten minutes called "Tomhet," absolute minimalism that portrays dark reflections of a dying age. Thus concludes a brief vision of eternal order rising from necessary violence and then chaos, presenting the human soul yearning for more than the functional before vanishing into despair with the enigmatic afterglow of a falling star.