Burzum – Umskiptar

The hate for this album amazes me. If him making this kind of music is "a shame to his name" (Burzum, a word he took from The Lord of the Rings) then let the people who have the capacity to listen to more than just metal enjoy it. I guess it won't be most people's cup of tea if they're not into medieval folklore or the vikings of history.

I've listened to everything he's done starting with his earlier anti-black metal triumphs, and UMSKIPTAR is and always will be, for me, his magnum opus. It's expertly composed (albeit repetitive at times) ,and the vocals that pour from Varg is so delicate this time around, you would think a man who had been done in for wrongdoings in the past would be wholly incapable of producing such grace. There is STILL metal in there for those who like it. Including myself.

This is atmospheric, devotional music at it's core and thankfully it's mainly electric guitar and no synth. (Varg tends to overdo the synth with an infamous windswept effect on his next records) There is a also ton of emotion to be felt here. Idk if this was Varg's intention, but when I listen to some of the tracks, here, particularly Surtr Sunnan and Valgaldr, I get misty eyed. This kind of music "transports" me to a life or time that I may or may not have lived, as odd as that sounds but it plucks at my heartstrings.

I literally just bought this, and am listening to it right now. I was pretty late to the black metal game, as I've only been listening to it for roughly ten years. Like any genre, there are few innovators and loads of shitty imitators. Burzum is one of the former, in my opinion, but this record sounds like the later. Now, there's ideas on here that I like. I'm not mad about clean vocals and instruments. I don't mind the experimenting. And some of this kinda feels like I'm being told a visual story in my head, and this is the soundtrack (i.e. "Galgvidr"). I dig that. In fact, everything from track 8-11 is pretty good, and would have worked really well as an EP. Burzum has ed the list of bands that have forgotten about the simplicity and beauty of the EP and single. If you don't have enough strong material, you won't make a strong album. This is not a strong album.

I know the count has a right to do what he wants, and fuck everyone else, but quality control seems to have been thrown out the window. If the record wasn't so long, and maybe had a few good headbangers on it, it would be a decent release. But as of right now, I'm regretting the $12 I spent on it. Maybe it'll grow on me, but as of right now I'm doubting how many repeat listens this album will get.

I just respect his work !!

Sad than here is not possible post vote 0/5... I felt in love with Burzum 20 years ago, when he made first releases, this was something. Now, when I listened 1 time this new "album" - I decided than will never listen it again. There is totally NOTHING. If this was some band with unknown name and released 1st album - than I putted it between 1000x other black metal "shit bands" - but when there is written BURZUM, this made only shame for this name in my mind.

After listening this thing one cannot avoid from thinking that Varg should kill someone elses and start an iconoclast riot in the effort to inflamme his now frigid inventive. Its the only thing i can think of that would "improve" his current artistic mediocrity.

Being stubborn is not the same as being determined, as being patriotic is not the same as being nationalist, as having mental stability is not the same as being deluded by psychotic delirium, thats a conflict most fanatics accuse, specially the religious related ones and although Varg is clearly not into Christianity, he is equally fanatic as his antipodes are. Vulgarly paraphrasing Nietzsche, Varg effectively killed god only to replace to another kind in which he deposits a faith as irrational as any religion is.

Believers use faith as a matter of understanding reality and usually their logic and reasoning results completely absurd and based on completely odd concepts and ideas. Varg accuses this in this album. He had come to believe that he is somehow "predestined" to interpret the Völuspá as the ancients did and also out of nowhere he claims to grant this effort with the musical accent it should have had in its origins. What we observe its that he just believe in what he believes blindly as any fanatic do and therefore (for him) then it is true just becouse. Unfortunately for him, only the thousand fans he still has behind still believe this preach.

This work portrays not only a very mediocre interpretation on the ways and moods of the myth interplayed but of the concept of the music interpreted. Shows the lack of knowledge from Varg about the music culture he pedantically boasts he is the modern interpreter and developer, pronounciating the poems from the mythical tale following the random "truths" that come from his mind, shows also that he cannot really play any music out of the mould from his maniac metal, inspired only by the once legendary album that made him famous (as any conspicuous narcissist should do) and this work as his dark past persecute him as some kind of fatal dream, legacy from his now lost youth.

Varg is confined and lost in the prison from his psychotic mind, looping eternally in his own fantasies and deliriums that he tries to capture in vain in his later works. His intent to enter into the folklore just abruptly undress his lack of musical abilities and knowledge to create what he wants to create, denounces an album made with mediocre ideas and understanding and with equally poor talent to produce something coherent. He is right whatsoever in his right to believe that deliriums are real and that his music is great, that he has trascended.

May Odin show him the way...

Boring for the average metal fan, apocalyptic for few of certain disposition. They know who they are. So does Varg.

Im trying to be objective but I am so bored after hearing this I just can't be bothered . Total self indulgent bullsh*t