It sounds like Burzum, I guess. Like an intro/intermission track. Nothing special. I miss the Pytten sound, it needs a special kind of production to achieve that hypnotic mood. Only so much one can do with such songwriting though.

Sounds like an intro track

It's quite clear there's a few people blinded by their hatred of the man in this thread, the song isn't that bad. The production is obviously on the more amateurish side but what else would you expect from him? the song is ok. I'll definitely give it a listen when it comes out, I thought Varg threw it in years ago. Definitely giving me some nostalgic feelings to be honest, I honestly haven't given the band a good listen for over ten years.

I find the track utterly weak and lifeless. No passion, no magic, none of the grandeur (or pathos, if you will) that made early Burzum so enchanting. I stopped listening to Burzum after Fallen (which is already strongly veering towards unbearable dullness), so I'm not familiar with anything that came after that.

The sound of the recording is fine to me. Definitely heard "professional" sounding stuff that is worse to my ears.
The music is fine and sounds like Burzum, a has already been said, but it's hardly exciting. I really lked Belus when it came out and still think it's a pretty cool album, but I think thats about the end of the road for me and Varg.

I'll be honest, I was expecting a little bit more. Or at least a something "a bit more refined" as silly as that sounds, I think if the drums weren't so low in the mix it would sound a lot better. All in all, I'll probably check it out. But yeah as soon as the drums came in I thought "aw man, come on." Who knows, maybe this album is just going to be something really relaxed and chilled out like Filosofem but even lighter and it makes sense for the drums to sound like you're listening to your neighbor practice, but this is like AJFA bass levels of drums.

The picking patterns are kind of nice, but they just meander and don't really go anywhere. And that power chord riff that happens a few times is pretty rough, like a teenager who just learned how to play power chords and made their first riff. There's like a 1% chance of it actually being really good, and Varg did not hit it.

I've never been a Burzum fan, but considering some of the things he wrote back in the day and then hearing this? Dude's really "lost his touch", which shouldn't be surprising considering how long out the game he's been. Makes you think about any of those bands that were broken up for years, and reunite with plans to put out an album then ends up not coming out for a while. If you've been out of that element for such a long time, putting yourself is going to be quite tough.

Second track is here already, and it's a definite change of gears from the first in some respects:

I quite like it, it's interesting how he decides whether a track is ok or not by letting drone in the background for a while and then asks himself whether he get sick of it or not, if it doesn't get annoying he'll keep it lol. It's one way to do it.

It's not even black metal really at this point to be honest, more like just ambient metal or something.

It sounds like he started recording a guitar melody and then his 8 year old child who'd just raided mom's hidden candy jar got on the drum kit and started banging the shit out of it.

This is what I also think, this is pretty far from metal musically speaking. I mean, is the same stuff that Varg has been doing at least since Belus. Anyone expecting other thing than ambient black metallish stuff is going to be disappointed.

Not bad, sounds like a bit of a continuation from the stuff he did on Umskiptar which I thought was an interesting album.

Could do with some fleshing out but at least its a little different.

I enjoyed that too. Definitely sounds more ambient but yeah basically a continuation of Umskiptar. Definitely has a one take/improvisational feel almost.

I actually liked that second track better than the first one. Very much in the vein of the post-2000 material as mentioned, and not bad at all (certainly not as bad as some have claimed anyway.)

It's okay but I liked the first track more. It had a more unique sound.

Track three, a non metal interlude this time around

not that bad at all - the problem is it could have had some development - bridge part to the melody, and maybe the spoken words should have been in norwegian, that accent slightly spoils it imo

Second song is slightly better than the first, both of them definitely sound like a somewhat more ambient and lo-fi exploration of the Umskiptar sound, as noted by others. I think at this point you could maybe say that Varg has adopted a fully 50/50 split between his ambient and his older metal sound, but I can still sense a blackened remnant, it's just more contemplative and less frosty. The 3rd/narrative track was decent, I don't mind ambient interludes so long as they either go somewhere or are reasonably short.

It's slightly better than the first one but it still sounds tired and lifeless. The vocals are bad, production is inexpressive and it's nowhere near as good as any of the songs on Bellus and Fallen. Both those albums were already a mixed bag. If this wasn't a Burzum record it would have like 10 monthly listeners.

Couldn't he at least blow his nose before he started talking?

Next song has arrived:




Very meditative and ambient, maybe more than any of the songs so far, despite the black metal exterior.

Quite enchanting. He's a good guitarist, I'll give him that. Drums still bug me a bit, but maybe I can look past them and enjoy the album.

I still think these songs sound very raw, in the sense of being unfinished. The interplay of the guitars and bass are quite nice, and I think Varg has a very good ear for timing and how to layer songs to achieve a cool atmosphere.

"Land of thulé" what an innocent title ^^

Not gonna lie, while I was cautiously optimistic when the first song came out, the songs that came after failed to grab me in any way.