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It's interesting to me that Varg Vikernes has been quoted as stating the Filosofem album is not his favorite, but then it wouldn't be the first time I've disagreed with a creator about his/her work. What's also curious is the fact that, like most Burzum albums, the material here was recorded several years earlier than the actual release. The reason it's so fascinating is that each of his full-lengths have been markedly different, so to track them over such a smaller span of time shows either blind coincidence or strong foresight before his imprisonment. Not all of the tracks here were meant for Filosofem. "Burzum" aka "Dunkelheit", was an old track originally intended for inclusion with the previous album Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, but wound up here. Regardless, they all incredibly well together into what I consider Varg's most compelling, nightmarish work.

Before getting to the music itself, though, I'd like to point out how beautiful the packaging for this CD is. Up to this point, Burzum albums had more or less been represented by dire, black and white images which effectively mirrored their grisly content. But Filosofem sees not only a mild injection of color, but also creates a powerful rustic cohesion, composed of artwork by Theodor Severin Kittelsen. Now, having admittedly little knowledge of Norse painters and illustrators, I might have found this more aesthetically pleasing than those who were accustomed to the style of imagery, but either way, it was pretty impressive for a black metal album in 1996. The lyrics here are half Norse, half English, and the explanations are in Norse. This is a rare case where the German track list is as prominent as the 'official', Norwegian titles, most notably "Burzum", which many to this day prefer to call by the German translation "Dunkelheit". Pretty unusual, especially since it didn't seem to be the case for the other albums.

As for the overall production values, Filosofem must seem a step down from the decidedly clean power of Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. The guitars are ruddy and distorted enough that they pierce the listeners' arteries, the drum mix a murky thunder, the synthesizers quaint and the vocals more grueling, spiteful and distorted than any of the prior albums. But oddly enough, this is one of the reasons the album is so damned good, despite Vikernes' own attempts to sabotage it with cheap microphones, fuzz pedal, and whatnot. As I've been revisiting and reviewing the whole Burzum catalog, I've probably made a number of mentions of just how influential these records were and remain. Well, I think it's safe to say that as far as the sound itself, Filosofem must have been the most inspirational of the lot; I've heard more underground black metal records that I could ever think about counting in the past 15+ years, and the structure here is incredibly common among the younger bands. It's probably just as often a subconscious tribute as an open libation, but also because such primitive tones are simple to achieve.

In particular, a lot of the depressive black metal bands you'll today take their queues from tracks like "Burzum", and it's not a strain to reason why. Incredibly crude, pathological chords woven slowly along the steady, solemn drums, conjoined to the plump, minimal glitter of the synthesizers and the repressed vocals, repeated and repeated with only slight deviations to the formula arriving in clean, downtrodden vocals and tweaks to the keys and guitars. "Jesu Død" moves at a more slicing pace, the opening, bloody melody affixed to feedback before the transition to chords, and then swerving around 1 minute to one of my absolute favorite Burzum riffs in history; like a wall of sanity and comfort dissolved into sheer menace. "Beholding the Daughters of the Firmament" follows a similar course to "Burzum", but even more repetitious and desolate. It is the two halves of "Decrepitude", however, that win the award for the most barren and bitter pieces Vikernes has ever included on an album. Jarring distortion, acidic vocals that sound like a crazed, stray cat's final testimonials before freezing to death, unable to find scraps of food anywhere in the winter. And no percussion! Just waves of death ebbing at you like Merzbow manning a suicide hotline.

Then, of course, there is the ambient piece, "Rundtgåing Av Den Transcendentale Egenhetens Støtte (Tour Around The Transcendental Columns Of Singularity)", a monster at over 25 minutes in length. This has long been a divisive element to Filosofem: some love it, some just don't understand it, and some understand it and fucking hate it. I fall firmly into that first batch, and of course anyone familiar with "Tomhet" from Hvis Lyset Tar Oss would not be surprised by its inclusion. Perhaps just the breadth. It's an amazingly repetitive but hypnotic synth journey which takes the listener on a tour through spaces external and internal, with scintillating, sparse and shattered melodies offset in thudding, implied bass lines and more of the ringing, fat synth used in other songs like "Burzum". If you're huge into 80s horror soundtracks (John Carpenter), Tangerine Dream, or others who once proudly boasted the day's hardly cutting edge pads, then there's no reason you can't be hypnotized here. Does it stick out like a sore thumb? Yes and no. The duration is a challenge, but the synth tones are not outlandish among those used in the metal cuts.

The cohabitation of the folksy art aesthetic and the almost mocking, drab raze of the composition were both impressive and unique, and there is no other Burzum album I would turn towards for a guaranteed audio mecca into agony. This is the tops for me, just narrowly edging out its predecessor. Once again, in a short framework, Vikernes offered something fascinating that you were unable to discover elsewhere, and Filosofem stands at the nexus of being not only his final black metal recording for over a decade, but also the last that was recorded before he would begin to serve out the murder sentence. It's breathtaking, but not the breathtaking of sunny vistas and dandelions; the breathtaking of having a knife stabbed inside you and turned about, the death of a culture and a history draining through your wounds. Let it be a poignant and ghastly reminder.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10] (I wonder how night will be)

http://www.burzum.org/