Burzum Flac

Varg Vikernes made his name as one of the Norwegian black metal scene's more notorious figures early on, involved not just with the extreme music of Mayhem and other black metal groundbreakers, but also with church burnings, murder, and time spent in prison for his crimes. This is all old news to anyone familiar with Vikernes and his one-man project Burzum, a musical entity that shifted from early black metal darkness into progressively more and more ambient territory. With 11th album The Ways of Yore, Vikernes continues the foray into European medieval music that he began with 2013's Sôl Austan, Mâní Vestan. The album's inherent gloom comes not from the burning hatred and isolation that fueled earlier Burzum albums, but conveys the same intensity through its use of chant and traditional instruments of early Norwegian folk music…

Varg Vikernes is once again wasting no time getting new music out into the world as Umskiptar is now the third album since his release from prison in 2009. While both Belus and Fallen were powerful examples of atmospheric black metal that harkened back to the early Burzum material, Umskiptar finds Vikernes moving away from that sound and diving into avant garde and Bathory styled viking metal.
That's not to say that there aren't some similarities here to the previous two releases. Varg likes to stretch out the atmospheric passages, sometimes for a tad too long, and the plodding tempos here on a few tracks, especially on "Alfadanz" sound a bit familiar…

"Thulêan Mysteries was made passively, in the sense that I never intended to make a new album; I just made music every now and then and at one point realized that I actually had enough to release it all on an album. When asked to do so I figured: why not? It was a good idea. The music is a little bit of this and a little bit of that, transcending any genre, and perhaps belonging to many different genres. The intention with it was always to create a certain atmosphere, often related to an idea or a situation. Since my true passion has never been music, but actually tabletop role-playing games, I figured I should make this an album intended for that use; as background music for my own MYFAROG (Mythic Fantasy Role-playing Game). Hopefully you will get a sense of Thulê when you listen to this, like always with Burzum, ideally when on your own. I hope you will enjoy this soundtrack to Thulê, to Mother Nature and life itself" ~ Varg Vikernes