Burzum – Umskiptar (2012)

Keeping up with releasing an album a year since his release from jail, Mr. Varg delivers Burzum’s “Umskiptar” this 2012. Combining the ‘traditional’ Burzum sound with some of the ‘new’ elements he showed in “Fallen”, this new release is a perfect mixture of both Black Metal and Folk elements, that while not groundbreaking it is still a solid release for this one man outfit.

Drawing inspiration from the Norse poem “Völuspá”, Varg does a solid job in creating chilling atmospheres that have a powerful Nordic feeling to them. Opening with the “Bloostokkinn”, this song feels like a war chant due to its atmosphere and spoken word sections. In “Joln” the quintessential Burzum guitar work marks its presence and delivers perverse riffs nicely paired with harsh and clean vocals. One of the things that made “Fallen” such an interesting release was the clean/spoken sections and “Umskiptar” is full of them as well.

The eerie piano opening of “Alfadanz” opens this nine-minute epic with a band and the riffing takes care of the rest. The vocals are somber somewhat raspy, adding to the overall feel of this song. The guitar work is quite repetitive, but very effective. In an interesting note, songs like “Hit Helga Tre”, and “AEra” feel like a struggle between the distorted and the clean sections, making them very interesting to listen to.

Our favorite track of this release has to be the very well-constructed “Valgadr”. In this track, the chorus section is quite chilling and powerful to listen to, since the combination of Varg’s vocal melodies with the dominant guitar riffs is just outstanding. Also, the overall pace of this song makes it very slow and painful (in a good way). The atmosphere created by the guitars is as thick as always, like on “Sutr Sunnan”, but considerably more enjoyable than in the past due to the a crystal clear production behind this album.

Before its conclusion, “Umpskiptar” gives us another gem with the very emotive “Gullaldr”, a track that is very mellow, dark, and disturbing.  If you miss like ambient tracks, “Njohoggr” does a great job in creating a very bleak atmosphere that nicely closes this release.

Love it or hate it, Burzum always polarizes fans and critics. One thing for sure is that “Umskiptar” is quite a thought provoking release that has a high replay value. While there are plenty of repetitive moments and some ideas reused from the band’s latest releases, this album it is still a push forward for Varg and Burzum. Be sure to check this out with an open mind and not expecting to hear gut-wrenching Black Metal for 50 minutes.

Release: May 22nd, 2012

Country: Norway