Burzum
Dauði Baldrs

THE REVIEW

It had been quite some time since I last "Imburzumavo-ed." Then, one evening, after many years, I listened to Umskiptar from 2012 and boom... I started going back in time, and within a few days, I immersed myself in almost all of his albums.

I have always liked Burzum. I have always found him to be a great artist, precisely because he is a despicable man. Yes, you heard right.

The artist is an abstract presence, an individual who attempts to seek beauty. The artist seeks a form of expression to communicate with ordinary people.

This is the artist Varg Vickerness, this is his tangible form of expression, which has nothing to do with who he is in ordinary life: A despicable being, a murderer, a fanatic, a totalitarian... an ex-convict...

It was the late nineties. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem had already been shocking the world for several years... and while the specialized press was hailing these albums as masterpieces of black metal and dark ambient, Varg was already in prison, and he would remain there for a long time. The judge had indeed sentenced him to twenty-one years of imprisonment for stabbing to death Euronymous, guitarist and co-founder of Mayhem, the band in which Varg appeared as a bassist.

During his detention, Varg spent many hours passionately reading Nordic mythology and Scandinavian folklore, to the point of being struck by the idea of recording a new album. For this purpose, he was granted the use of a synthesizer for a limited period, which led to his forced transition from heavy music to dark ambient and minimalism.

Daudi Baldrs was conceived as the first chapter of a trilogy - still unfinished today - centered on Northern European myths. In this case, we have a musical adaptation of the myth of Baldr, one of Odin's sons, and his death caused by a divine conspiracy. The album was supposed to include narrated parts, which could not be recorded because Vikernes was not given the opportunity to use a microphone.

Vikernes’ synthesizer produces simple - almost elementary - melodies, and even with the electric guitars off, it maintains the same compositional concept, made up of repetitive, enveloping, and obsessive parts. The atmosphere unfolds between claustrophobic sections and medieval interludes. The suffocating melodies seem to incorporate the melancholy, desolation, and solitude experienced by the author during his imprisonment.

Daudi Baldrs should thus be taken in its homogeneity and entirety, as a sort of tragicomic sonorous De Profundis, which hides behind Varg's literary passions, but inexorably betrays his state of mind: a sonorous reportage of asphyxia and desolation to listen to at least once in a lifetime...