Burzum - Belus
March 15 2010 at 11:22:02 AM  The Fame and the Fame Monster. Had Jimmy the Greek not committed racial slurs in a gambling business founded on the exploitation of blacks and consequential elevation of said blacks as exemplar human beings, he would’ve bet the farm on the eventual Disneyfication of Varg (née Kristian) Vikernes. The original Kultosaurus Erectus, Vikernes crapped out per the course he resigned his art to, transmogrified into Black Metal incarnate after turning word into deed, and landing himself in jail for nearly two decades. Now free and deftly releasing his first post-incarceration recording, Belus, Vikernes is poised for more of the same. Once chambered in chain mail, Vikernes comes forth in sweats and sneakers. Message isn’t cryptic; he’s different, changed, unconcerned with his youthful personae—even though he’s not an ounce repentant. Circulating photos show us an older, less mercurial Vikernes with baggy eyes and trademark Nordic beard. He looks more like a classics professor or antique clock clerk than a killer, but reckon that’s the appeal. If anything, his physicality—or lack thereof—adds to the confusion over why so many continue to be threatened by him. Never had a problem with Vikernes. Never had a problem with Plato’s fascism or Heidegger’s Nazi roots either. Never interfered with my readings and re-readings of The Republic and Being & Time. “Modern” fixation deems we must agree with every aspect of an artist before we can appreciate their art: My bro’s gramps can’t even watch Tiger Woods play golf anymore because he dipped his wick in so many ho honeybuckets. Carry on, wayward son. Can’t curtail the drama. Record’s destined to be declared failure and masterpiece, an embodiment of childish and wrongheaded politics (even though it holds not a trace of the aforementioned) or just plainly evil, or worse—banal. Argument as childish and wrongheaded as the subject matter will practically drown the actual artifice regardless of all the lip service it receives from unlikely suspects. Media cannot contain itself. Vikernes proves the imperfect storm, an upset of confusing ideals and uncompromising visions far too “real” to be ignored. Music writers who operate in the comfortable environs of new-fangled Black Metal—which isn’t Black Metal at all—are already so many fish out of water flopping about in strange attempt to control their need to “cover” Vikernes’ Belus or “cover” the coverage re: Belus—a media parlor-trick allowing others to get their feet wet and then asking how cold the water truly was. Those getting their Vikernes “news” solely from the American media filter must think the man was jailed for saying “nigger” or conflating Teutonic mythology with Heathen ideals and poppy, tangential science. Wooly and free condemnation takes multiple forms and surfaces in the usual outlets—blogs, Internet BBS, Twitter, etc. Even if Belus was a 50+ minute field-recording of Vikernes clubbing seals with a Patagonia catalog, it would still succeed simply because of the spectacle. Who would’ve thought the man would triumph in a world predicated on illusory notions of peace and goodwill no different than the Coke jingle from the 80s—“I’d like to teach/ the world to sing/ in perfect harmony”—that so well fits this milieu of ersatz liberalism and hope? Gone are the days when Black Metal was unapproachable, verboten subject to prattle on about from MacBook. Truth proves even stranger fiction: Bands Burzum spawned in its wake are legion, and nearly none contain a fraction of “der Wille zur Macht” harnessed by Vikernes so many years ago. Today “bona fides” made manifest by playing a festival sponsored by an auto manufacturer, and thereby rendered participant in “dodgy, satanic” activity. Overwhelming cred, indeed, and far more assuring of authenticity than myriad connections to church arsons or ventilating Euronymous with a blade… We all should be elated this Burzum incarnation does little to recall the past and has nothing to do with Black Metal proper, unless the genre’s been modified to include precious musings on nature and myth. Despite its mythological subtext, Belus is a record ostensibly billed as electric folksong given “Metal” trappings from frenzied guitar to “curiously” Opethian logo. Vikernes attempts to ground Belus in the traditions of Hvis lyset tar oss, and Filosofem, but Belus’ music bears little resemblance to the hopelessly existential snuff showcased by his earlier efforts. The shrieking, desperate hag is gone, as are the keyboards. What remains are a few simple compositions grounded by “volk” melody surrounded by predictable filler. Caveman drums add little, and the crash cymbals fritz about in hell’s version of The Gong Show, hosted by ferrets on mountains of coke. Moments notable for extraordinary normalcy are folded into “flashes of brilliance” ginned up from a template comprised equally of the “Vike Rock” made manifest by Bathory’s Hammerheart or Enslaved’s first two full-lengths, Vikingligr Veldi and Frost. When it works, the embellishment is sublime. Queue “Gelmselens elv,” logical steps from “Dunkelheit” and also worlds from it. The song posits the inviolate menace expected from Vikernes, even if it recalls a split tableaux oscillating between long nights spent sucking the Odinic thumb and “the scene” in Highlander where Chris Guest flails away at invisible foe from purple mountaintops while his blue-eyed, blond pig-tailed Aryan spouse tends to Aryan dwelling and dwellers. Spoken and spat vocals, throbbing rhythm, Sturm und Drang incarnate. “Kaimadalthas’ Nedstigning” embarks without spectacle, akin to anything produced by California shut-ins with Tascam and drum machines. And then jettisoned to Berlin basement club courted by males named Werner or Albrecht artificially happy and head bobbing to dupstep. Bill Laswell at the controls, beret cocked, Brut stench floating out in obstreperous cumuli. Reminder: Composer is a killer, even if he’s in club’s corner manufacturing convincing SCTV Eugene Levi all while tres casual in Le Coq Sportif. Long way down to this record’s end is punctuated with dreary ellipses, narcotized Doctor Zhivago type trudges through romantic snow drifts, even if they smell far too much like early Sigur Ros. Piling on is a thing of giving beauty. To wit: A friend, who happens to work as a reporter, followed up a tip on state senator who was said to be attending a Klan-sponsored dove shoot early autumn. Went along for the ride; failed to protest his love of Lady Gaga and stared at invite. Expensive cardstock, crests multicolored and of ambiguous symbolism, place, time, date. Drive was long and warm and through the gate checkpoint gave way to a longer drive on gravel road past jakes strutting though clover and spike bucks grazing unguarded. White people dressed in khaki and blaze orange sipping tea and bourbon and Coca-Colas while Mennonites all named “Yoder” worked up breakfast from cast-iron witch cauldrons. Doves flying already and consequently cut down in quick mounts of heirloom scatterguns. They fall from the sky. Senator isn’t here, Copper whispers to me. Corpulent man introduces himself to us as “Jimmy” and then laughs and says “no relation to ‘The Greek.’” He’s wearing neither hood nor swastika. He offers me a glass of Blanton’s. Despite oppressive heat and early morning, I accept. Copper asks Jimmy if he’s heard of Varg Vikernes. What you say? Varg Vikernes. You heard of him? Say again, son? Sounds like fart from pack mule comin from your lips. Jimmy smiles fat and sweaty and smelling sweetly of bourbon and mounts and fires and feathers fill the air. Children play hide-and-go-seek amongst hay bales. A Tom gobbles in the immediate distance. No lynchings. No burning crosses. Lots of flesh-pressing, back-slapping, guffawing. Soft men gone gelatinous in cliché. Copper asks Jimmy how he can shoot the “bird of peace.” Easy, son. You lead. And pull the trigger. [Stewart Voegtlin] Burzum
Belus Byelobog Productions 2010
type: reviews
keywords:
black metal,
metal,
nature,
norway,
lhp036,
varg,
nordic,
odinic,
myth,
racism,
vike rock,
soap opera,
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Maybe you should have spent less time masturbating to Heidegger and read some Hanna Arendt for a change then.
There are fundamental questions that need to be addressed here, and Im afraid this piffle is a far cry from the deeply personal,self-lacerating existential exorcism needed to confront this poison.
But, as the piece says, Spectacle has suffocated poor Goldmund in this occasion. All we're left with here is sociology as a defense.
http://deathrowfortraitors.blogspot.com/2009/06/euronymous.html