Music review: Burzum - Burzum (1992)

This review arrives almost one year after claiming that the succeeding Det som engang var was my favourite Burzum work, but I may currently waver slightly in favour of his debut instead. For my defense, these were initially pretty close and remain so.

The argument I gave for this first choice still stands: Det som engang var is much more polished, make no mistake. But this simply doesn't outweighs all the pros of the first:

• The highlights are similar in numbers ("Feeble Screams From Forests Unknown", "Spell of Destruction", "A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit", "My Journey to the Stars" vs "Key to the Gate", "En ring til aa herske", "Naar himmelen klarner") but more memorable to my ears.
• The production isn't strictly better but compliments the cold theme even better than the competing bleak one and its "dry" production. The drum machine and tortured screeches being even colder and at the front of the mix really create something dark and magical.
• "Channelling the Power of Souls Into a New God" destroys "Han som reiste" in the ambient interlude category.

The cons are mostly found in some of the non-highlight tracks:

• "Ea, Lord of the Depths", while good, gets old after some time; especially its drum pattern.
• "War" isn't the laughable meme some consider it to be, but a primitive Bathory worship track does break the album flow; still not bad, though.

I'll shamelessly quote myself (source: this) concerning the otherworldly vocals which didn't and still don't sound like anything else. Not a scream but a blood-curdling shriek like a banshee's. Cold sounding, so cold it's dry enough to hurt your lungs with every breath. And such a match for the music…

In this situation, it gets the same rating as its followup. Had it shortened "Ea", dropped "War" then added the two new tracks from the Aske EP (with the same frostbitten production, though!), it might have warranted a 10.