In 2012, the only thing more boring than talking about the past of pioneering musician, divisive theorist, and infamous loudmouth Varg Vikernes, aka Count Grishnackh, is listening to the music he's now releasing as Burzum. More than two decades ago, Vikernes became a pillar of emergent black metal, both for the wildly emotive and ruthless qualities of his best records and for his status as the anti-Christian wildchild who burned churches and murdered his bud/label owner/rival, Mayhem guitarist Euronymous. While locked away for some combination of those crimes, he continued to push the reach of black metal, both stylistically and socially: Though they're little more than ham-fisted neo-classical baubles, the pair of electronic albums Vikernes recorded while in prison certainly helped presage the form's recent sprawl. What's more, while behind bars, Vikernes played a star role-- the troubled philosopher-poet, standing up for his country and his ego-- in Lords of Chaos, the 1998 non-fiction black metal journal that did so well it warranted a second edition. More than a decade later, the documentary Until the Light Takes Us caught him talking radicalism (and cereal) in his jail-time get-up.
So, yes, without Vikernes, the black metal story doesn't happen, or at least it doesn't get book-deal interesting or, consequently, quite so popular to another generation of pissed-off kids who've since turned the sound inside out. But if Vikernes had never made another Burzum album after his release from prison in 2009, the world probably wouldn't have demanded one. He did, though, and setting aside the controversy about the artist, his album titles, or the incredibly stupid name of his label ("Byelobog," or "Whitegod," or "Fucking obvious move, Varg"), those records-- 2010's strange Belus and last year's ferocious The Fallen-- were actually quite good. They didn't necessarily change the perceptions of Burzum or expand the conceptions of the music Vikernes made, but they did serve as a reminder that Burzum mattered outside the context of his vileness.
In the past seven months, however, he's done his best to obviate that idea: Last November, he released From the Depths of Darkness, an 11-track collection that combined three short instrumentals pieces with eight re-recordings of Burzum classics from his first two full-lengths. Despite the resurrection suggested by the title, Darkness was as pointless as it was bad, not so much recalling past successes as detracting from them. Still, the familiarity with those songs made them more bearable than those on the new Umskiptar, an album that's only listenable to the extent that it's laughable.
Vikernes based Umskiptar on "Völuspá", a 66-stanza poem that serves as the Norse creation-destruction-rebuilding myth and is essential to Vikernes' ignominious nationalist ideology. He sings the story in his native tongue, his plain baritone dispensing the tale with minimal inflection, as though he were a droll history teacher or minister relaying a foundational message yet again. (If you're interested in the poem's translation, the website of the keenly capitalist Vikernes suggests picking up the special edition of his 2011 book, Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia; or you could simply Google "Völuspá in English" and save your money.) In an early press release for Umskiptar, Vikernes explained that the album keys on "a strong focus on atmosphere." Though Vikernes has never been one for songcraft so much as feeling, Umskiptar feels particularly void of structure or direction. It's as if that attention to environment and ancient text prompted Vikernes to write and record Umskiptar as though no one else would actually listen to it. Maybe it's best to think of it as a personal-religious trance, then, and to just keep out.
There are occasionally interesting textures, like the submerged piano that opens "Alfadanz" or the way the winding guitars in the back half of "Hit Helga Tré" give Vikernes' exposed voice some much-needed authoritative lift. But the songs here barely deserve that title. "Níðhöggr", for instance, finds Vikernes whispering over field recordings, a bass drum, and a distant, wobbly tone that splits the difference between a trumpet feeding back and a Steven R. Smith guitar meander; its aim seems eerie, but it's mostly amusing, another moment of forced seriousness from a fellow who would do well to find another strategy. "Níðhöggr" serves as the start of the big, closing build that culminates with "Gullaldr", a 10-minute latticework of tension so rote that it makes every Slint-loving post-rock band of post-grads sound interesting by comparison. On "Heiðr", Vikernes buries his incantations between sheets of black-metal guitar screech, occasionally peeling the noise away to emphasize the drama. Once again, it just sounds silly, making it a fitting preamble for "Valgaldr", an eight-minute bog in which he wraps ghoulish harmonies around distorted riffs. It's like Iron Maiden on Thorazine, except worse than that might seem.
Even during the decade Vikernes spent in jail without producing new material, he's represented an interesting conversational point among music fans: How do you treat the legacy and possibly fresh output of someone who's done so much to build a sound while concomitantly doing so much to make everyone associated with it look like a cruel, racist, ignorant simpleton? Is it best to ignore him completely or to embrace him for what he is-- an egoist and/or idiot capable of making occasionally interesting art, possibly because of those views? There are, of course, those who dismiss any mention of him and those who treat his politics and deeds as though they stand separate from his music. (There are others who simply agree with him. Best of luck?) Some walk a middle ground with Vikernes, lambasting his views while lauding what his music has accomplished. He's become something of a meme, and when Metal Sucks covered the "news" that he is working on a role-playing game of his own, they aptly introduced him as the "murdering bigot fuckhead Varg Vikernes." There are, of course, no ultimately correct answers for such a difficult debate-- essentially, an argument not only about freedom of speech but the limits of art and of cults of personality. Coupled with From the Depths of Darkness, Umskiptar makes it easier to find a slightly more satisfying remedy: Varg Vikernes is, as advertised, "a murdering bigot fuckhead" whose string of interesting-to-important records has now faded into such formless, hapless bullshit that even Odin likely doesn't care.
