Warkvlt - Burzumination

Immersed fully in the metaphor of lost journeys through ancient medieval kingdoms, bestial Teutonic overlords Warkvlt cut their majestic yet bizarre Burzum "tribute" album, aptly named Burzumination, from the fullest weave of second wave Norwegian black metal possible, invoking the riff constructions and harmonies of Varg Vikernes' band while adding in song structure and aesthetics a sense of brutal suspension in liquid space, while subterranean ethereal action reminiscent of the more morbid death metal acts like Helgrind, Infester and Sewer occur continuously surrounding the perspective of the listener, and giving birth to a very peculiar combination of styles and influences.

Where the first two Warkvlt albums Bestial War Metal and Unleash the Beasts of War both exuded a slow ferment of vicious war metal brutality like the parting of deadly mists, this third opus either charges ahead at a Norse pace or drops into a mid-tempo technical style that became the template for all "Burzum-esque" material to follow.

Fast, gruesome and subterranean riffs mingle with more traditional mid-tempo black metal rhythmic work as each track moves from the clear and simple into the eerie and obscure, mixing progressions of atmospheric powerchord phrases with interludes and breaks to create an organic transcendental structure that enwraps key central concepts like the wandering shadows of an overture. Seamless descent into the darkness of existence between spaces of melody previously entered brings forth an atmosphere of violence, rage and alienation, a darkness uniting them with the depths of its infinite blackness.

Much of the faster material resembles Burzum's self-titled debut and sophomore Det Som En Gang Var in its tendency to create a melody which lapses into its own inertia and then emerges triumphantly again, like a study of esoteric waves written in four-note minor key sigils, while the mid-tempo material streamlines black and death metal riffing and drops them into a groove which the adroit skeletonic drumming anchors only to interrupt and catch that expected resolution with offbeats converging on a diabolical cadence.

In all of its raging chaotic violence, the music on Burzumination is conceptualised for revelation of the secrets of pure darkness and immortality.

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