Burzum
Belus

Album: Belus (2010) Artist: Burzum

Pointless, do not be fooled by those who judge too quickly, do not learn from them, never learn. Listen. And listening does not mean hearing, remember that. Take an hour, sit comfortably, start this album, and begin. Do not delve too much into criticizing sound, or performance, or imbalances... they aren't needed.

This album, as is often the case with Burzum, does not care. You shouldn't care either, and immerse yourself with closed eyes in the repetitiveness (again, less so than previous ones) of this noise, let it wash over you, thinking of nothing else but the abrasive yet harmless guitar sequences, the parallel bass, and that distant and dim voice screaming incomprehensible lyrics (perhaps fortunately).

The attack makes you wait, preceded by a track, just half a minute of slow and slightly irregular ticking. It waits for you to pay a little more attention. And then immediately starts with "Belus' Doed", as usual, a nearly nonexistent drum, buzzing guitar, voice from the underworld—seriously, not like the clean, orderly, and tuned growl many of you may be accustomed to... no. This really comes from down there, bites you, scratches you, makes you realize it is absolutely indifferent whether you understand the language or not. You get it (or don't) equally.

The third track, eleven minutes, relentless, but all in all calm and catchy in terms of sound. Toward the end, a doubling in the bass drum tentatively makes its way and begins to accelerate, heralding a more sustained rhythm in the following track. The repetitiveness of these sequences is the foundation of this music, which presents itself as a slow variation of a fundamental structure... On the four notes that follow each other throughout the track, harmony is gradually built, which then varies, exchanges, enriches, dismantles, enlarges, rises, gets lost, distances, and then inevitably returns, but always changed, although not too much, so we can still recognize it, yes, it's her, still her, grown and matured, but we remember her, and deep down it pleases us.

The fifth track, "Sverddans", surprises us, it has its structure, which puts us a bit in order, reassures us. When they throw such an atrocious song in front of us, just the fact that it's 'in order' is a big step forward for us. Foolish, right? As if it made sense just because it consists of three verses and a chorus that repeats identically. And indeed, it doesn't last, in two and a half minutes, it's already gone. No, not on this record. Break the habit of seeking "songs". These are not songs, this is music. The difference between a beautiful drawing and an abstract painting: the drawing reassures us, perhaps a bit strange, distorted, but we know what it is. The abstract frightens us, instills fear. But it's the abstract that makes us feel emotion more than anything else, paradoxically telling us much more than the drawing, of which we assume we understand everything. Understanding...that's not what we need.

What we must do is seek, always, ask and seek, interpret. And that's what abstract paintings invite us to do... paradoxical books... this album. The eighth and ninth (final) tracks are connected, but in the latter, any sense of rhythm is absent... only the notes count, slowly fading away, leaving us silent and alone at the end of its nine minutes, more eager than ever to go out, or at least stick our head out of the window. Because we feel like prisoners, or at least confined.