Burzum

 

The story of BURZUM is well-documented, so I'm not sure how much detail to go into.  I'll try to limit my discussion to the music and not focus on non-music shenanigans. Varg Vikernes (the mastermind behind Burzum) began a solo project called Kalashnikov around 1988, after he had only been playing the guitar for a couple years. Within a year or so, he changed the name to Uruk-Hai. There is debate about whether or not there are any known recordings from that time period.  In later years (sometime in the later 1990s), some recordings emerged of Uruk-Hai material, but there is doubt about whether it's from 1988-89 or the early 90s.

After the early Uruk-Hai years, Vikernes joined the Norwegian death/black metal band Old Funeral.  As I noted on my entry for early Norwegian black metal, this band also had (at various times) Abbath (of Immortal fame) and Jørn (of Hades fame). Varg has said his time in Old Funeral was highly educational, as he learned about the more technical aspects of music. 

A classic promotional pic of Varg

After the demise of this band, Vikernes revived the project Uruk-Hai before soon changing its name to Burzum, which is the word for "darkness" in the Black Speech of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  He also started going by the stage name Count Grishnackh to further distance himself from his old ways. Burzum was more or less an old-school black metal project, but with the touch of that occultic edge that 1980s Mayhem had.

From the first untitled Burzum demo, this is "Lost Wisdom"

Vikernes put out two untitled demos in 1991 under the Burzum name.  They included many songs which went on to become classics, such as "Lost Wisdom," "Spell of Destruction," "A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit," and "Feeble Screams From Forests Unknown."  Many of these songs were instrumental, with no vocals.  Nonetheless, they highlighted the emerging Norwegian sound.  Bearing resemblance to what Mayhem had done up to this point, while maintaining some uniqueness, these Burzum tracks helped lay the template for many black metal bands to come.

This is from the 1992 self-titled album...

As is known,  Burzum recorded all of what would become his classic nineties material in the span of about a year. Recorded in January of 1992, Burzum first released a self-titled album.  This was put out on Euronymous's label Deathlike Silence Productions.  In terms of black metal sound, the self-titled album was a continuation of the the sound pioneered on the demos, but at the same time an improvement.  I think that Vikernes' vocals were more tortured, more insane-sounding than pretty much any other black metal vocalist up to that point in history.  That first album is one of black metal's all-time greats. It's simple, yet raw and merciless in its effect.

Recorded as part of two different sessions in 1992, Burzum put out an EP entitled Aske (which is the Norwegian word for 'ashes') in early 1993. Also released through Deathlike Silence Productions, this is one of the few Burzum releases with another musician on it. Samoth (of Emperor) played bass on Aske because for a brief while, Varg entertained the idea of playing live. He did not hold on to that notion for long. 

"Key to the Gates" is from Det Som Engang Var

Burzum's second full-length album was Det Som Engang Var. Recorded in April 1992, this album feels conceptually linked to the self- titled one. With music that still feels raw and primitive, DSEV is as good an introduction to Burzum as any. This album was released in 1993 through Varg's new label, Cymophane Records (which was a sublabel of white power label Resistance Records). It was pressed in a limited run (950 copies), so this resulted in many bootleg editions in circulation. 

From Burzum's 1994 album, this is "Inn I Slottet Fra Droemmen"

Burzum's third album was recorded in the fall of 1992. It took a while for this album to get released because Varg's legal troubles began mounting. He signed the rights to his last two albums over to a third party who then founded Misanthropy Records.  Once this dust settled, this album--titled Hvis lyset tar oss--was released by Misanthropy in April 1994. It felt like a departure from the previous two. Yes, the primitivism was still present, but we see a real transcendence being achieved on some of these tracks. In this way, it foreshadowed what was to come on Burzum's fourth full-length album. 

My favorite Burzum song,  "Darkness (Dunkelheit)"

Burzum's fourth full-length studio album--titled Filosofem--was recorded in early 1993. By his own admission, he was rebelling against the new developments in the black metal scene and this made its way into the recording sessions. He once called this album an "anti-black metal" album. But by rebelling against some of the emerging trends in the black metal scene, he merely set a new bar for black metal!  The raw production, the hypnotic riffs, the droning ambient...all of these things took Burzum's black metal to another level entirely. Many say that Hviss lyset tar oss is in the running for greatest black metal album of all time, but I place Filosofem higher. It was released through Misanthropy Records in 1996, after Varg had begun serving his jail sentence for his crimes (church burning, Euronymous's murder).

And this is as good a place as any to pause the story of Burzum. As is widely known, he was able to put out two fully ambient albums while in prison (while in prison, he claimed to have sworn off guitar-based music forever), but that doesn't interest me. Perhaps I'll resume his story where it picks up when he was released from prison....? We'll see.

This song was recorded during the Hvis lyset tar oss sessions but never made it to album

Select Discography:

Demo I (1991)

Demo II (1991)

Burzum (demo) (1991)

Burzum (full-length) (1992)

Aske EP (1993)

Det som engang var (full-length) (1993)

Hvis lyset tar oss (full-length) (1994)

Filosofem (full-length) (1996)

Next time: NECROPHOBIC

Mayhem: The Dead Years, 1988-1991

And now for the most famous black metal band during its most famous period.  In 1988, vocalist Dead (Per Ygnve Ohlin) joined, having previously been in the Swedish black/death band Morbid.  In the same time frame, drummer Hellhammer joined.  With this, Mayhem's 'classic' line-up was born: Euronymous on guitar, Necrobutcher on bass, Helhammer on drums, and Dead on vocals.  They were coming off of the new-found underground notoriety that 1987's Deathcrush album had brought them.

A 1988 rehearsal of "Necrolust" with Dead...

In the years 1988-1990, Mayhem was truly an underground phenomenon.  They released no albums, no officially sanctioned demos, no live albums.  Nevertheless, the bootlegs that circulated in the underground during this time period cemented their reputation as one of black metal's elite.  Live shows all over Europe also helped create the Mayhem mythos.

In 1990, two new studio tracks surfaced: 'Carnage" (one of their older classics, but with Dead on vocals) and "Freezing Moon".  These tracks have seen the light of day as not only a demo cassette entitled Studio Tracks, but also as a seven-inch entitled Freezing Moon.

The legendary "Freezing Moon", from the 1990 rehearsal

Much as Mayhem's early years peaked with the Deathcrush EP in 1987, the Dead years peaked with the Live in Leipzig album.  This was recorded in late 1990 at a performance in Leipzig, but was not released on CD until 1993.  The material released both officially and unofficially in these years can be considered some of the best that old-school Norwegian black metal has to offer.

From the Live in Leipzig album, this is my favorite track from this era, "Funeral Fog"

In my opinion, Dead was the best vocalist Mayhem ever had: more talented than Messiah, more consistent than Attila, less annoying than Maniac.  He, as is well known, killed himself in 1991.  With his suicide, Mayhem's second (and some would argue, best) phase came to an end.  The next phase will be explored at a later date....

Select Discography:

Ha-Elm Zalag (bootleg rehearsal) (1988)
War and Sodomy (Live in Zeitz) (live bootleg) (1990)
Studio Tracks (demo) (1990)
Out From the Dark (bootleg demo) (1991)
Last Breath (Last Recordings with Dead) (bootleg rehearsal) (1991)
Live in Leipzig (live album) (recorded 1990, released 1993)
Dawn of the Black Hearts (Live in Sarpsborg, 1990) (released 1995)

Next time: PROFANATICA

Mayhem: The Early Years, 1985-1987

The story of MAYHEM is pretty well-documented at this point.  They formed in 1984 in Oslo, Norway, taking their name from the instrumental Venom song, "Mayhem With Mercy".  The founders were guitarist/vocalist Euronymous, bassist Necrobutcher, and drummer Manheim.  Drawing their influence from bands like Venom and Bathory, a lot of their early material was covers.  They produced a very rough, raw demo in 1985 entitled Voice of a Tortured Skull.  It never got an official release and is still considered a bootleg down to this day.

The classic song "Carnage", without vocals, from 1985's Voice of a Tortured Skull

In these early years, Mayhem became known more for their demos than anything else.  Euronymous tended to vocal duties until they landed Maniac on vocals sometime in 1986.  In 1986, they put out the official demo Pure Fucking Armageddon and recorded live tracks that later were put out on the bootleg album The Dawn of the Black Hearts.

"Ghoul", from Pure Fucking Armageddon

In 1986, Maniac (or was it Messiah?) joined on vocals.  In 1987, they put out the Deathrehearsal demo and the very famous EP Deathcrush.  I would say along with Sarcofago's INRI and Bathory's Under the Sign..., Deathcrush was one of the black metal highlights of 1987.  One can really hear a modern black metal sound taking shape on Deathcrush.  The genres were really beginning to differentiate themselves from each other by this time, with thrash and death and black metal all carving out specific niches.

I love this song.  "Deathcrush" is such a classic.

With vile, tortured vocals and the kind of distortion which is still with modern black metal to this day, Mayhem achieved something fairly unique on Deathcrush.  There weren't really a lot of black metal bands that sounded uniquely black metal.  They were, for the most part, black/thrash or black/death or some other blurring of genres.  Mayhem really marked a shift.


After 1987, Mayhem changed quite a bit.  Hellhammer took over on drums, and the infamous Dead took over on vocals.  I will focus on Mayhem during the Dead years at a later date.....

Select Discography:

Voice of a Tortured Skull (demo) (1985)
Pure Fucking Armageddon (demo) (1986)
Deathrehearsal (demo) (1987)
Deathcrush EP (1987)

Next time:  SARCOFAGO