I wore a Burzum shirt to art college yesterday. On the front it has this:
and on the back this:
It's unofficial, of course. I wouldn't actually support Varg Vikernes, as the man is undoubtedly an utter shit. He is, however, a shit who makes very good (and very influential, as an aside) music*. The first album's fun (and a lot better, incidentally, on vinyl), but there's a lot better material on Det Som Engang Var and Filosofem, and I also rather like the prison albums (the last two synth only works). I like Vargs almost deliberately contrarian approach to producing black metal, using all the wrong equipment, shockingly basic guitar work (on the first couple of albums anyway), and completely unstructured vocals. I really admire the fact that whereas most black metal vocalists use a more practiced and technical style of vocals (the dreaded cookie monster), Varg basically just screams till he wretches. He's also an obvious influence on pretty much all my other favourite BM bands: Horna, Judas Iscariot, Vlad Tepes, Wyrd, Xasthur, Abyssic Hate, Nortt, etc. Also, it doesn't sound anything like crust, except in terms of quality and simplicity.
But again, of course, I must re-iterate that he really is a cunt.
*Hell, Burzum is pretty much the reason I started to make music.
