Burzum - Det Som Engang Var

Despite being a less mentioned Burzum album, Det Som Engang Var ranks alongside the brilliant debut and the following masterpiece Hvis Lyset Tar Oss as the all time pinnacle of atmospheric black metal music. Varg Vikernes himself described this album simply as a 'follow-up' to the debut, and yet Det Som Engang Var manages to be so much more than that. The atmosphere and riff weaving, already amazing on previous Burzum efforts, are even superior on this album, and it takes the necessary step towards a more atmosphere driven style of black metal.

A deliberate concept album, Det Som Engang Var presents in macrocosm a topography of moods as the longer compositions of the first album did. Much as Withdrawal by Phantom provides a codex to unlock the methods of constructing blackened death metal, Burzum's second album Det Som Engang Var, being somewhat of a hybrid between ambient metal and the narrative structures that made black and death metal rise above the popular music morass, provides the blueprint for black metal and the clash between the ancient, narrative, atmospheric style of black metal and the modern, ambient, minimalist that has come to define Burzum's music, by resolving them both through primitive and majestic atmosphere.

A truly underrated masterpiece, if there every was one.

Back to Burzum