Burzum – Fallen (2011)

Looks like Varg Vikernes was very active writing music in the last few years and delivers the second post-prison Burzum album in two years. With “Fallen”, Varg seems to dig back into the early Burzum material and delivers a very solid and impressive release with some upgrades to the older sound.

One thing that will come as a huge shock for people expecting pure and raw Black Metal is the use of some clean vocals and humming. While this might seem confusing at first, it actually enhances the mood of the album greatly and makes the harsh vocal sections more grim and meaningful.

After an initial ambient opening track, since the first guitar lick of “Jeg Faller”, you know it’s Burzum we are talking about. Through “Fallen”, Varg delivers the typical Burzum guitar sound making this album very identifiable with the band’s previous catalogue. This song is also the perfect example of all the new things incorporated into Burzum’s sound for “Fallen”. The melody created by the humming very effective setting an interesting mood in the song.

While the riffing is very ‘similar’ to whatever else the band has done before (riff-cycling), one of the major differences between “Fallen” and “Belus” is that the drumming seems less monotonous. In “Fallen” the song structures seem to be a bit more ‘experimental’ and create very different patterns between the tracks. “Valen” is song that shows a bit of both of these things, and when the different vocals are layered (clean and harsh) it creates a magical synergy of elements.

“Vanvidd” is a track that perfectly mixes the older Burzum style with the newer humming/clean vocal sections creating a very eerie sound, and we can’t stop but wonder why the hell Varg is humming. The most interesting track of the release (at least for us) has to be “Enhver til Sitt” since it nicely winds down through a very intricate change of paces throughout the song.

The massive “Budstikken” clocks at 10 minutes and it’s our favorite song of the album since it has a great tempo and while maintaining the rawness of the Burzum sound, it has a different edge to it. Some of the riffs sound very different to the rest of the album. But the killer element has to be the combination of bass guitar and the clean vocals around the 5:30 minute mark, pushing things into a whole new level. The ambient closing track “Til He log Tilbake lgjen” feels like a nice closer to this album, but at 5 minutes it’s also more of a filler song than anything else.

Overall, we are greatly impressed by “Fallen”, this release is somewhat superior to “Belus” in almost every single aspect. With the addition of the clean singing and humming, we can instantly see the hordes of people calling bullshit on it, but we actually enjoyed it very much. Burzum is evolving slowly and Varg knows exactly where he is going, so we just have to enjoy the ride. This is surely the first Black Metal album of 2011 that you must buy.

Release: March 7th, 2011 (Europe) / April 5th, 2011 (USA)

Country: Norway