Burzum - Til Hel Og Tilbake Igjen by speedglueandmusic_aw
Proving that the Norwegian prison system works, Burzum has now released his second post-prison album, and has not yet been caught committing any hate crimes. His first post-prison work, Belus, surprised me with its focus and intensity, and exceeded my low expectations by far (and ended up at the #1 spot on my best of 2010 metal albums list). I had no idea he'd follow Belus up so quickly, but nevertheless I tentatively hoped Fallen would match the quality of it's predecessor. It definitely succeeds in doing so- if you liked Belus then you will likely be happy with this. It mostly follows the template set forth on Belus, but this time Varg spends a little more time crooning than before, and several of the songs feature a martial, mid-tempo near-motorik beat (as on "Enhver Til Sitt") that brings a hypnotic groove the record. While most of the album follows a particular formula, "Til Hel Og Tilbake Igjen" ends the album on an odd and spacey note- definitely weird in a good way, but hopefully not an indication that Varg is itching to get relive his ambient days. The biggest fault this album has is the thin production; I thought that Belus sounded thin but figured it might just be low-quality mp3s. Fallen also has a pretty wispy sound, but I found that turning the bass up on my sound system and listening to this at a higher volume improved the experience. Varg definitely seems to found a new sound that suits him well- if he keeps putting out albums of this quality, this period of his career may be regarded as highly as the Filosofem era.
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