Burzum - The face of evil

Varg Vikernes, mastermind behind the Burzum project, is an extremely controversial and influential Norwegian criminal and musician. Throughout his career he has stood out as an innovator of the northern European black metal scene. His earliest records are marked by extreme brutality, which he very quickly moves beyond to create a slow, rarefied alternative, paving the way for the atmospheric black metal that has influenced countless artists around the world. The hallmarks of the Burzum project ("darkness" in Sauron's morgul tongue from The Lord of the Rings) are primarily its extremely raw, lo-fi sound, with early releases closer to the origins of black metal (more Bathory than Mayhem), an instantly recognizable distorted guitar tone, and the creation of stretched-out atmospheres through hypnotic, repetitive sounds placed within tracks that, on average, run longer than those of traditional Scandinavian black metal bands. The recording quality is deliberately as low as possible, the instruments are the cheapest and shoddiest available (both by choice and necessity). As a microphone, Vikernes asked the recording engineer for the one with the worst audio quality. After several attempts, he decided to use the one from a pair of headphones — the worst possible option.

The trance that the Burzum project creates is an attempt to put the listener in touch with nature and the mythology of pagan religions. From this perspective, the typical anti-Christian philosophy of black metal bands could only emerge, one in which Christianity is seen as the cause of the end of pagan spiritualism tied to the earth and nature, and of the end of the ancestral faith, replaced by a religion imposed through force and violence. Varg's thinking is therefore no different from that of other musicians in his scene, but he lived it out as an absolute life mission, going from being a key figure in the 1992 and 1993 church burnings to a life of isolation deep in the Norwegian forests.

The fundamental difference between Vikernes and most black metal bands is that his psychotic personality drove him to believe in his ideas with paranoid conviction, dividing the world in a Manichean way between good and evil, much like any terrorist of any creed, effectively turning his ideas into irrational delusions capable of justifying any crime, from church arson to murder, and who knows what else, had the police not put a stop to his violence. Another element that sets him apart from his friends-turned-enemies in Mayhem is that Vikernes has no interest whatsoever in Satanism, not even as a pretext to get attention or sell more records (which was ultimately Euronymous's approach) — instead he is utterly obsessed with pre-Christian religions, with which he feels an extremely strong bond.

This extremist mindset would lead him to cultivate unacceptable ideas, such as racism, antisemitism (a term sometimes used loosely, but in this case entirely fitting) and the core belief that races should not mix and that some (the Nordic ones) were born to dominate and subjugate the others. In short, the idea of a world made up of races locked in constant struggle, where only the strongest can prevail: essentially, the same way of thinking as Hitler's. His views have therefore been linked to Nazism, and indeed, although he has at times denied it ("Hitler was Christian, I am pagan"), these toxic ideas surface clearly in countless interviews and on the covers of Dauði Baldrs and The Ways Of Yore.

In a 1993 interview, Burzum tries to justify himself by distinguishing between "good" Nazis (the pagan Norwegians) and "bad" Nazis (the Christian Germans). In other interviews he uses the word "negroes" in a derogatory sense, and elsewhere claims that Norwegians are the old Vikings and should invade, kill men of other races and rape their women, just as they always did. In 1996, in a prison interview, when a journalist asks him what his main musical inspirations are, he replies that his main inspiration is the SS. In another interview he answers more seriously, naming Bathory, Darkthrone, Dead Can Dance, Candlemass, early Iron Maiden, early Slayer, Coil, Vangelis, early Kiss, early Rotting Christ, and the sound of rain and storms.

Needless to say, Vikernes's historical musings amount to little and reveal only the confusion of a clearly disturbed personality. What does emerge clearly, though, is that his passion for pagan religions leads him to reject the entire modern world, multiracial society, equality and democracy.

The two lives of Varg Vikernes

His life splits essentially into two parts: that of the musician and that of the criminal. It's clear that here we will focus mainly on the artistic side, which holds its own relevance, trying to weave into the analysis of his discography the dark chapters from the crime pages that cannot be ignored if we want to fully understand the man — but which do not affect the overall assessment of his work. This is because the value of Burzum's body of work as a whole goes beyond the sinister allure, and thus the notoriety — however negative — of its creator, and it would hold a certain interest even if Varg hadn't been the criminal he is.

Essentially, Burzum is not Vikernes, or at least not entirely. This is because, obviously, works of art, once released into the world, take on a life of their own, distinct from that of their creator. Music critics listening to Wagner judge him without factoring in his antisemitism; literary critics reading D'Annunzio judge him without factoring in his ridiculous militarism and his sympathies for the far right. What is certain is that Varg Vikernes is not someone we'd want as a friend, or to have a beer with. He has expressed his racist and xenophobic views on more than one occasion, he wrote less-than-pleasant words about the July 22, 2011 Utøya massacre carried out by the Nazi criminal Anders Behring Breivik, who killed sixty-nine young people; he took part in dozens of arson attacks on historic churches, indirectly causing the death of a firefighter; he was charged with car theft and making threats; and finally he served a long prison sentence (from 1994 to 2009) for the murder of Euronymous, guitarist of Mayhem and Burzum's own record producer, which took place on August 10, 1993.

The albums of 1992-1993 released before the arrest

Vikernes's project begins after his departure from Old Funeral, with the release of Burzum (1992) on Deathlike Silence Productions, the label run by Euronymous of Mayhem. It's a highly violent debut, fairly close to the Bathory sound, with icy guitars and vocals comparable to the screams of a tortured man (anyone familiar with Cromagnon knows that even American psychedelia had gone there). We're still far from the idea of atmospheric black metal that would emerge in later years. The guitar chords repeat themselves, lending a hypnotic quality that Mayhem's black metal never had. Burzum's screams, railing against the modern world, are almost unbearable and always incomprehensible, but the appeal of tracks like "Black Spell Of Destruction" is undeniable.

There's a clear anti-commercial streak running through Burzum, as if rejecting every principle of contemporary life. At the same time, it shuns any possible fascination with the record industry (even the niche world of extreme metal), itself perceived as enslaved to the rules of money. His piercing screams aren't those of a real singer, but represent an absolute otherness — probably psychotic in nature — toward any notion of integration into contemporary society. The technique is poor, but the atmosphere is more than enough, as in the pagan anthem "Ea, Lord Of The Depths" and the first synth experiment "Channelling The Power Of Souls Into A New God." A track like "War" (featuring a solo from Euronymous) betrays his death/thrash listening habits. This raw, violent record proved a success, and the project's name began to circulate, probably sparking Euronymous's first pangs of jealousy.

Other records would have already been ready, but it seems the Mayhem leader tried to delay their release, creating major friction between the two. At a certain point Euronymous decides to release Aske (1993), with cover art featuring one of the churches burned by Vikernes (almost a self-incrimination), an EP of just three tracks containing "A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit", his longest track to date (over ten minutes), obsessively repeating a handful of chords to create alienation and anguish. It's the track that foreshadows his subsequent career.

The Three Albums from the 1992-1993 Period, Released After the Arrest (1993-1996)

After the arrest, the records Vikernes had made and that Euronymous had tried to block or at least delay begin to be released, in dribs and drabs. The first is Det Som Engang Var (1993), a Tolkien-esque album as shown by the cover art and by the seven minutes of "Ring Til Aa Herske", with its typically doom riff that probably betrays an interest in Candlemass. Overall it's a record that continues along the same path as the debut, but with a higher recording quality. There's a sense of despair in Vikernes's screams that is almost unbearable, yet it has something undeniably real about it. The nine minutes of "Snu Mikrokosmos Tegn", split into three parts (first piercing screams, then a melodic riff, finally an epic close), "Lost Wisdom" and "Nar Himmelen Klarner" — the most "classic" tracks of the bunch, so to speak — and "Han Som Reiste" (his first exclusively electronic piece) are the seeds from which his best works would grow, namely the two that followed.

Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, recorded in 1992 but released in March 1994 by Misanthropy Records, is objectively a stunning album, with four very long tracks totaling forty-four minutes. It's the first record to use illustrations by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914), a master at depicting the nature of the North and Nordic legends, in a unique blend of reality, magic and symbolism. Vikernes proves he has a songwriting ability above the average of the scene he's part of. Keyboards dominate the fourteen glacial minutes of "Det Som En Gang Var" (oddly the same title as the previous record), with piercing screams over guitars and keyboards that are less aggressive than in his early work, but layered in an oppressive, obsessive way, coming across as forceful and solemn. There's almost the idea of a black metal suite, even if obviously we're a long way from the tempo and structural shifts of progressive suites. In some respects, it's his dark masterpiece.

"Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" (eight minutes) raises a truly impressive wall of sound. It's a return to chaos, with extremely fast drum rhythms and guitar chords that repeat relentlessly without respite from start to finish. This violence, however, has nothing in common with that of death metal or of Mayhem themselves, pushing as far as possible toward a sound as majestic and wild as a Norwegian forest lashed by wind. In "Inn I Slottet Fra Droemmen" (seven minutes), the repetitiveness becomes almost unbearable, a new organized chaos that accepts no compromise. Around the fourth minute everything slows down, arriving at what is a classic guitar riff supported by synth. This is clearly a moment of great creativity for Vikernes, as also shown by the fourteen minutes of ambient/electronic music on "Tomhet". Vikernes is certainly no Edgar Froese, nor Klaus Schulze, nor even Brian Eno, but even on terrain not particularly suited to him he maintains a certain credibility, something he would struggle a great deal to keep up in his later electronic records. Despite countless later attempts, "Tomhet" remains his best experiment outside of black metal.

Filosofem is the last album recorded before the murder of Euronymous, specifically in March 1993, and then released in January 1996. It's his manifesto and his masterpiece. The cover art, once again an illustration by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen, is as iconic for black metal as the banana of the Velvet Underground is for psychedelic rock. The guitars retain the rawness of the distortion, but the tempo slows down and a keyboard sound overlaps with a particular timbre, somewhere between an electric piano and a vibraphone, giving a track like "Dunkelheit" a wholly original, alien sound — the highest point of his career. The idea that something ritualistic lies behind this sound grows ever stronger; it's as if Vikernes were taking on a shamanic role for the first time. The vocal registers sometimes shift, with brief spoken passages breaking up the usual anguished screams of pain.

"Erblicket Die Töchter Des Firmaments", one of his most imposing compositions, repeats a truly granite-like riff in the style of Darkthrone for a full seven minutes, with screamed words — this time almost intelligible — invoking a return to lost pagan spirituality, almost like a group ritual.

Vikernes shows he's well ahead of the entire True Norwegian Black Metal scene with brilliant tracks like "Gebrechlichkeit I" and "Gebrechlichkeit II", featuring a musique-concrète intro, then three repeating keyboard notes, a bed of extreme distortion and disarming screams worthy of an avant-garde composer. "Jesus' Tod", with a very fast rhythm, anti-Christian lyrics and a close kinship with his first albums, would be reworked more than once in different versions on later records. "Rundgang Um Die Transzendentale Saule Der Singularitaet" runs for over twenty-five minutes and is an ultra-stretched cosmic/ambient version of "Tomhet" from the previous LP, with no overlapping drones and no drums: a work that black metal bands of the time could never have imagined.

A Crossroads Between Good and Evil

During this two-year period (1992-1993) Vikernes remains split in two. On a human level he's on the edge of the abyss; artistically, he has reached his peak with Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem. Among the many possible futures, he will choose the worst one. As a man he will plunge into the deepest abyss, from which he will never again emerge; as an artist he will survive — albeit with difficulty — but will never again come close to the creative heights of this two-year span.

First True-Crime Interlude: Vikernes the Terrorist (1992-1993)

As we mentioned, Vikernes's anti-Christian ideas are a serious matter, an ideology that can justify any crime, not a macabre facade to sell more records. This is why his entry into the anti-Christian organization known as the Black Metal Inner Circle proves the perfect outlet for his violence. While the group itself is little more than a bunch of wayward kids who get together at Euronymous's shop Helvete to drink beer and listen to extreme music, he imagines it as something closer to an anti-Christian terrorist revolutionary cell. What Euronymous sees merely as a way to generate publicity and cultivate an aura of evil within the metal world, he interprets as a tool for a much broader revolutionary mission. He is the ideologue and, in part, the perpetrator of the church burnings that shook Norway between 1992 and 1993. In 1993 he confesses to a journalist the existence of the Black Metal Inner Circle and his responsibility for the recent fires, as well as for the murder — committed by Bård Faust, former drummer of Emperor — of Magne Andreassen, killed with some thirty stab wounds for being homosexual. Vikernes is immediately arrested and released six weeks later for lack of evidence.

Second True-Crime Interlude: Vikernes the Murderer (August 10, 1993)

In 1993, tensions with Euronymous grew increasingly fierce. Financial problems (Vikernes believed his friend was using money from his record sales to fund Mayhem, plus Vikernes still owed him a debt that hadn't been repaid), the two men's differing visions of black metal, combined with Vikernes's paranoid-psychotic disorders, all led to tragedy. On August 10, 1993, Vikernes broke into Euronymous's home armed and killed him, stabbing him twenty-three times in the back as the victim tried to flee. The self-defense claim thus appears ridiculous and contrived. Everything is explained in detail in the book "Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground" and the subsequent 2018 film, to which the reader is referred. Despite his attempt to conceal all the evidence, it didn't take the police long to track down Vikernes, who was arrested a few days later and sentenced to 21 years in prison.

Like all full-blown psychotic personalities, Vikernes has never shown any sign of remorse for the murder, nor any empathy for Euronymous — in fact, to this day his official website never misses a chance to disparage him.

After his second arrest, the church burnings continued until 1995. Over four years, from 1992 to 1995, as many as fifty-two churches were burned down. One of these fires claimed the life of a firefighter.

The prison albums (1994-2009)

Vikernes the criminal was rightly sentenced to 21 years in prison, but the musician somehow managed to keep his project going. In prison he only had access to keyboards, and in 1997 he recorded Dauði Baldrs, a concept album about the death of Baldr, the god of Norse mythology, confirming that his years behind bars had not changed him and that he felt no guilt whatsoever for his crime. The cover art by Norwegian artist Tania Stene clearly reveals his Nazi-tinged, racist delusions. A Viking chieftain (who probably represents Baldr metaphorically), wearing a garment covered in swastikas, appears to kneel and receive the Eucharist from a Catholic priest and his altar boy. This "gift" from the Christians would bring about the end of the pagan religion in Norway. The priest and the altar boy are clearly portrayed in a negative light, while the Vikings — strong and blond — represent the Aryan race deceived and destroyed by Christianity.

Compared to the electronic music of the time, the album is certainly mediocre and rather uninteresting, not to mention played with a thoroughly elementary piano technique. Here and there, though (for instance in the title track, which reworks the melody of "Jesus' Tod" from Filosofem), glimpses emerge of the talent that might have blossomed had Vikernes not squandered it through his criminal actions.

The Burzum project — by then on its last legs — returned in 1999 with Hlidskjalf, the second and (thankfully) last keyboards-only album recorded in prison. Confusion reigns supreme, and — aside from a few dark-ambient moments ("Tuistos Herz") — the mix of electronics and medieval melodies played with beginner-level technique often veers into embarrassing territory. It seems clear that pretty much any music student could have recorded something more professional.

A third true-crime chapter. Vikernes the fugitive terrorist (July 26, 2003)

On July 26, 2003, Vikernes was due to report back to prison after a short leave, but decided to try to escape instead. He first stole a Norwegian family's car, threatening the driver with a knife, then got hold of rifles, disguises, a gas mask, knives and credit cards, and attempted to flee to Sweden. The Norwegian police, not exactly surprised by this behavior, arrested him in under twenty-four hours. Vikernes claimed, somewhere between a lie and a delusion, that he had tried to escape because someone in prison wanted to kill him (the same excuse that had led to Euronymous's murder). Unsurprisingly, this convinced no one, and he lost any chance of being granted further leave.

Release from prison and the return to black metal (2009-2011)

In 2009, Vikernes was released from prison on probation and returned to his musical roots with two solid albums that sound almost like his early work, albeit with slightly more intelligible vocals and a less raw production. At their core, once again, lies the theme of Norse paganism.

It seems that 16 years in prison changed almost nothing about his psychology — if anything, they only reinforced his abhorrent views.

Belus (2010) is another concept album, this time centered on Belus, the god of light. Divided into eight interconnected parts, it's an ambitious, hypnotic work, though one that has lost any trace of the innovative spark one could find in albums like Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem.

"Belus Doed" is a new version of "Jesus' Tod," this time with more defined guitars, slightly less shrieked vocals and better production. "Glemselens Elv" offers no respite with its eleven pathos-laden minutes, in which Vikernes's unscreamed voice can be heard for the first time. The album reaches its peak at the end, when Vikernes moves past the usual black metal conventions and closes with two long, extremely repetitive and hypnotic blackgaze tracks. "Keliohesten," and especially the ten-minute instrumental "Belus' Tilbakekomst (Konklusjon)," amount to an almost spiritual listening experience.

Vikernes therefore still has something to say (barring his delirious interviews), and in 2011 he returns with Fallen, another black metal chapter in his discography. While the guitars and drums are similar to his classic metal records, the vocals are at times noticeably cleaner ("Jeg Faller"). One could say that Fallen marks almost a meeting point between the early LPs and Belus: a good album, then, but one that sounds already heard before. The reiteration of Vikernes's skeletal riffs is by now his trademark, instantly recognizable among a thousand tracks, as "Vanvidd" or "Budstikken" clearly show. Closing the record is "Til Hel Og Tilbake Igjen", a bizarre composition of pure concrete avant-garde.

Also in 2011 comes From The Depths Of Darkness, a collection of old tracks from the 90s re-recorded with a more professional production.

An epic metamorphosis, a Nordic theogony (2012)

Vikernes realizes it's time for a change, and with Umskiptar (2012), a word that translates to "metamorphosis", he decisively shifts course with monolithic, epic-flavored riffs ("Alfadanz", "Hit Helga Tré") that take him far from classic black metal. The vocals are now almost always spoken, and the album is another concept work, this time dedicated to the Norse poem "Vǫluspá", which recounts the creation of the world according to Nordic mythology. It's a fairly bold work, with strange post-rock touches ("Heidr") and slow but solemn rhythms ("Aera"). From "Galgvidr" onward things change, almost as if we were listening to a different record altogether, with a religious solemnity that Vikernes's music had never shown before. Everything slows down to the near-stasis of the dreamlike folk of "Gullaldr" and the now-familiar avant-garde finale of "Nidhoggr".

Abandoning metal, between electronics and pagan-folk (2013-2020)

Vikernes had already stated in the past that he was growing less and less interested in black metal, and Umskiptar already hinted at a turning point. From 2013 to 2020 the change becomes truly radical, and Vikernes releases only electronic albums, following in the footsteps of the records made in prison, but with far greater technical skill and pagan-folk influences he had never shown before.

Sôl Austan, Mâni Vestan (2013) is the soundtrack to "ForeBears" (his first and only soundtrack), an amateur film directed by his wife Marie Cachet. The author's intention is to revisit the cosmic sounds of kraut-rock bands, and in various interviews he cites Tangerine Dream. The intentions may well be good, but the record doesn't seem able to stand on its own without the film's images, and the ideas put on the table hardly justify almost sixty minutes of music.

The Ways Of Yore (2014) is a more elaborate and meditative work, with clear folk crossovers that at times recall something of Heilung ("Heill Odinn"). The cover art, featuring Gustave Doré's image of Merlin and Viviane evoking pagan folk settings, is unfortunately framed by a series of interlocking swastikas. Although the album represents a step forward from its predecessor, once again there simply aren't enough ideas to justify such a length (sixty-eight minutes).

Thulêan Mysteries (2020) is by far his best non-metal album. With a beautiful cover, once again taken from a work by Norwegian painter Theodor Kittelsen, it was composed over a very long period, never conceived as a unified project. This quality makes it much more varied and interesting: from the harp sound of "The Ettin Stone Heart" to deeply evocative moments like "The Land Of Thulê" or the title track, there are many episodes that bring out new, intriguing sonic ideas. Even when it stretches on, in tracks such as "A Forgotten Realm", "The Road To Hel", "The Dream Land" and the never-ending "The Password", the record - nearly 90 minutes of music in total - remains engaging to listen to.

A new Burzum project? (2024-2025)

In 2024 a series of singles were released under the name Burzum NEW, collected in The Land Of Thulê. Vikernes picks up the guitar again after quite a few years, returning to his characteristic distortions, even though the metal violence is now a distant memory. Of black metal only a vague recollection remains, perhaps a ghost lingering in the air, almost a hauntological version of ambient music with black metal guitar distortions.

It's a smart choice, perhaps the only possible one. Given a career so consistently split into two halves, seeking a meeting point seems both inevitable and understandable. In 2025 five more singles came out, following the same path as their predecessors. Tracks like "Beyond The Gate" and "The Call Of The Kraken" seem to prove that the Burzum project isn't just a piece of history yet, but still has something alive left to say.

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