Burzum - Burzum

Burzum - Burzum

Remember when black metal was more than about droning on the exact same riff for ten minutes straight, with no variation whatsoever? I'm talking about bands like Dark Funeral, as you may have guessed. Well before the posers came into black metal in hordes, there was the early Norwegian scene. And more specifically, there was Burzum and their eponymous debut. What makes this Burzum album so special? Let's find out...

While better known for his more mature later efforts such as the masterpiece Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and the more mediocre Filosofem - and the murder of Euronymous - the debut album by Norway's greatest black metal act is often overshadowed by the following Burzum releases. Yet, despite the self titled debut being too often seen as a relatively immature album, it has much more depth to it than an album such as Filosofem.

The first Burzum album helped black metal outgrow mainstream heavy metal and popular music by adding complex narrative song structures, shades of Varg Vikernes' taste for classical and electronic music, advanced phrasal riffs that developed melody over multiple different iterations, and an atmosphere of blackness and melancholy.

A true black metal gem.

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