Demo II

Burzum's demos are interesting, both in good and bad ways. The first demo "Burzum I" was barely audible. Even for black metal standards, I could barely decipher the music, and Varg's overall performance was lousy. His next demo, titled "Burzum II", would be a massive improvement, though it still has its flaws.

The first notable change in this demo is the distortion. The demo still retains its distorted sound, though the music is now more clearer. The guitars are more audible, and the drums and bass aren't as quiet as the previous demo. However, we still get some occasional horrible distortion on this demo. In "Spell of Destruction", the drums overpower the rest of the instruments. If I listen closely, I could just barely hear the guitar, though the bass was nowhere to be heard. I'm fine with Burzum using distortion, as in their later works, Varg uses distortion to add the signature raw feeling in his songs. Here, however, he still has yet to perfect the distortion.

Varg's instrument work has also improved a lot. In the previous demo, the guitars just have an okay riff, and the drums just bang all over the place. Here, the guitars have more complex sound to them and have more of a rough style. The drums have more control as they bang in a better pattern. The bass, however, still needs some improvement, as it just copies everything the guitar is doing, and doesn't offer anything special.

The composition on the songs have improved majorly. In the previous demo, it's obvious that Varg had no direction on how the songs would be written, so he just went along with whatever guitar riff was playing. Here, there is more purpose in the sound. The guitars and drums have a focused structure, and they don't go off-track. Even the mediocre bass at least doesn't sound off key. It isn't perfect, but at least they're structured better.

The overall musical quality in this demo is far better than the previous demo. There is less distortion in the songs, the composition is structured better, and Varg's musical ability on the instruments are miles better. While the demo isn't perfect by any means, it's at least a tolerable listen.

This is a one of the few Burzum demos and the longest one of them. It isn't the only value of the record though. The material of the release is quite interesting and, furthermore, the demo provides some questions even today, after Burzum has achieved a cult status and has become well-known leaving not much mysteries behind it.

The second demo contains 3 tracks from the first one and 9 previously unreleased tracks. Overall there are 9 separate compositions, as some of them repeat in different versions. Every composition is featured on some particular studio album of Burzum. Every except one - "Depressive Visions Of The Cursed Warrior". We'll talk about it later. The demo is fully instrumental, recorded and released by Varg himself. In fact, it's a compilation of rehearsal compositions. The rawest sound of Burzum is logically here. That's actually a one of the values of this record, the demo is for the most hardcore admirers of rawness.

The other value is in the fact, that some of the compositions significantly differ from their final versions. "Channelling The Power Of Souls Into A New God", for example, isn't that dismal in comparison to the full-length variation, but it's more melodic and sorrowful. "Rite Of Cleansure", which would turn to "Dominus Sathanas", is two times longer, than in its final version. The second half of the original contains more variations of the composition's mystical riffing. Anyway, for Burzum fans even the tracks, which aren't much different from the final editions, will be an interesting listen.

Now it's time to talk about "Depressive Visions Of The Cursed Warrior". Varg himself claimed, that it wasn't a track of Burzum, and Varg had no idea of how that composition had appeared on the demo. It's a big question, if Varg forgot his own track or someone somehow managed to place it on Burzum's self-released record, or all today's photos of the demo actually show some fake editions. Anyway, all this stuff doesn't matter much, because "Depressive Visions Of The Cursed Warrior" is a great composition, it has a hypnotic doomy melody alternating with faster one, which represent a kind of a barbaric mood.

So, this demo has some interesting material indeed. Of course, the majority of final versions are better, but the original ones have their charm. In any case it's interesting to spectate the evolution of the legendary project, that's why the second demo of Burzum will find its listeners.