Review Summary: I guess that would be the description for this album. Isolation. Burzum is a one man band, and it can give the feeling of complete isolation, or just simply be the soundtrack for the lords of chaos themselves.
Notable tracks:
Feeble Screams from Fores
Black Metal is quite possibly the most mysterious, and yet intriguing genres of extreme metal. As with it's cousin Death Metal, many of the albums will at times get repetitive fast. I mean, can you really listen to Butchered At Birth all the time. In the world of Norwegian Black Metal, atmosphere is everything it seems like. Burzum's first album is a prime example of raw production, torture reminiscent vocals, and just ugly sounding guitars. Because of all these features, after just 2 days of obtaining this album, it is my favorite so far, as well as my first Burzum record. For reasons are one, it is unique. The hand drawn art, synth interludes, and at time thrash and melodic sounding guitars compensated a lot for the repetitive nature of this album. When you hold it in your hand it really dose feel like and independent underground album, which at the time of it's first release, it was, and still is in a lot of ways.
If anyone should criticize this album negatively, I imagine it would be for one or two reasons.
One, production. I will warn you, this album, because of typical Norwegian independent production, takes somewhat of an acquired taste. The most notable flaw is the drums. The kick drum is a constant loud pop, and the high hat becomes almost a hiss when hit repeatedly. Guitars are a noisy grind also, but in my opinion, you can't bitch too much, because during tracks like War, they just sound kick ass!
Two, vocals. Big deal really! So Varg is not the best Black Metal vocalist. I much prefer him over Attila, or Maniac. I personally love the sound of a guy sounding like he's tortured and throat is bleeding while demonic music plays in the background. Because that's just the kind of album that Burzum is, as the name translates to in Black Speech: Darkness. This album is just sometimes so dark and emotion seems to astoundingly spit itself out out times when you least expect it. It really dose sound painful at times. The sound of the the record will create a dark mood and an isolation type atmosphere.
it's not accessible to me otherwise at the moment, and plus i owe it to the band because of my review
