Haha. What he could also use, would be a war in Norway that forced him and his family to flee to any given Arabic speaking nation as the only means of survival. Let's see if they're so backwards then.
And also the constant hints at Jewish/Zionist conspiracies; "Obama might be a mulatto, but the guys who truly run the US, they're of one specific race...". Hint hint. I think most of the rest of the world, save some Russian fanboys, have grown to look beynd his rants, ever since he started calling guitars nigger instruments.

The cleaner sound and less harsh vocals make me think of the album as kind of "easy-listening burzum experience". Anyway, I'm liking most of its melodies, but it's still quite easy-listening compared to what Burzum used to sound like.

I remember having a cassette of Graveland, don't remember the title. Also bad played stuff, but not Burzum quality of compositions and feeling. Anyway it had nice moments.

Aquarius Records reviewed Burzum:

Who would have thought? A new Burzum record, after his release from16 years in prison. Has it really been 16 years? And who would have thought the new Burzum would actually be really really great?! Certainly not us, especially after the last two stinkers, the made-in-jail, all-synth Daudi Baldrs and Hildskjalf. And the last one of those was more than 11 years ago! And let's not forget Varg's prison conversion, becoming a neo fascist, a Nazi, spouting white pride rhetoric, hell, this record was even originally titled "The White God", not to mention that he's in fact a convicted murderer and an arsonist. But it's always been like that with Burzum, and much of black metal, but in Burzum's case in particular, we try to not confuse/conflate the man with the music, and to be fair, for some that's not possible, no one could fault a person for not wanting to support a musician who espouses reprehensible views, and one way is by not listening to their music, and not buying their records. But as we've posited before, your record collection would begin to get pretty sparse, once you eliminated records made by assholes, and by people whose politics you disagreed with, but again, it's perfectly fair to do just that.
But for those of you who can in fact separate the music from the musician, then Belus is a pretty serious and solid return to form. Not so much Filosefem as Det Som Engang Var and Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. The same guitar tone, the same epic riffage, the same raspy vokills, for someone who was not allowed a guitar for the last decade plus, it's pretty amazing that in the space of less than a year, he somehow managed to come up with this. Granted some of these tracks are older, but for the most part this is a brand new record, could be that it was formulated over the past decade, the result of all that pent up emotion, this fierce and furious chunk of black buzz, weirdly melodic in places, very trancelike all the way through, with lots of spoken word mixed into the frantic riffing and blasting beats... The record is at its strongest when it's the most Burzumic, blown out buzz, frenzied riffing over loping midtempo rhythms, the riffing surprisingly layered and complex, check out "Morgenroede" with the relentless main riff shifting from fast picking, to dizzyingly looped arpeggiation, making the whole song swoon and warble, before lurching back into a buzz drenched lumber. The closing track, "Belus' Tilbakeomst (Konklusjon)" is pretty incredible as well, super intense and droney and atmospheric, the riffing almost static, building all sorts of tension, layer upon layer, various notes and overtones ringing out, the playing frantic and frenzied, but with very little forward momentum, almost like some weird sort of black raga drone, rendered in black buzz. There's lots of that sort of unlikely innovation going on here, every time we play this in the store, people come to the counter to find out what the heck it is, and then they can't believe it's Burzum. Or, rather, they might very well have thought it was Burzum, but can't believe it's the NEW Burzum.
It's too bad for Burzum, and for this record, that Belus will forever be saddled with so much non musical baggage, though it's his own damn fault, cuz once you dig through all the shit, get past all the politics, all the rumors and racist rhetoric, past all the expectations and the various scenesters and tastemakers, past the fact that he's really just a total fuckhead, if you can forget just for a second what led up to the creation of this record, Belus could very well end up being one of the best black metal records of the year.

Great review.



...and forget what I wanted/would have liked it to be and past the still mostly crappy vocals, get into the mood and relax to it, even the most thrashy songs are just great. Yeah, I ended up addicted to this shit, but that's something that wouldn't surprise me even when my initial deception. And no reviews have had anything to do with that, it's just about Burzum. The album could still be a lot better for me, but it strangely works very well. Still has a bit of magic in it. Fuck, I even said this was going to happen.

If Andreas likes it, then it must be a damn great album!