Jump to content

Mayhem vs Burzum


Requiem

Recommended Posts

23 hours ago, Vampyrique said:

Wow, that's an impressive collection! I've only got the Mayhem basics. On a side note I'd like to know what else lies deep within the cavernous depths and hidden vaults at Castle Requiem and how does the missus contend with your level of compact disc-ophilia? 

I agree with everything you said about Mayhem being more interesting on many levels and the lure and lore of Mayhem far exceeds that of any metal band but relative to my criteria of ranking bands against one another, musical style and my connection to or appreciation of band members is typically outweighed by the body of work of a band. I find it interesting that Mayhem was able to maintain a consistently Mayhemish vibe on albums throughout their lengthy career despite the line-up changes, between album gaps, and storied events. But I understand your reasoning completely. 

I thought Belus sounded like a logical follow-up to Filosofem and I enjoyed it very much. Fallen was fine but didn't like the direction as much, have the follow up album but listened to it once and didn't bother with anything after. But As you pointed out, the first four are classics and to which showcases run of albums that I don't think many bands can compete with. Hlidskjalf is excellent too! 

 

The depths of the collection at Castle Requiem are too profound for mortal knowledge, and if you were to know the truth you would run screaming into the hills. You'd run to the hills. You'd run foooor yooouuurrr liiiiifffeeee. 

I feel I need to clarify my favourite band criteria. It is the music first and foremost. I am enthralled with Mayhem's body of work. 'Deathcrush', 'Live in Liepzig', 'De Mysteriis', and 'Grand Declaration of War' are all 9 or 10 out of 10 for me. Burzum are super close though - hence my bright idea to have them battle it out musically. But Mayhem easily tip the scales when I count all that other stuff about them. Hail Euronymous 666. 

8 hours ago, Balor said:

Cool collection!  What are the papers in the center?

Those papers, dear Balor, are photocopies of letters that Euronymous wrote to a Turkish guy around 1990 when they were trying to tour with the Dead lineup. The series letters outline what Euro and the band are up to, plans to record 'De Mysteriis', passport photos of Euro and Dead, travel arrangements, itineraries, stuff like that. I actually explain the collection in some detail in the 'Post Photos of Your Metal Collection' thread in the 'Photography' forum. Check it out. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Requiem said:

The depths of the collection at Castle Requiem are too profound for mortal knowledge, and if you were to know the truth you would run screaming into the hills. You'd run to the hills. You'd run foooor yooouuurrr liiiiifffeeee. 

I feel I need to clarify my favourite band criteria. It is the music first and foremost. I am enthralled with Mayhem's body of work. 'Deathcrush', 'Live in Liepzig', 'De Mysteriis', and 'Grand Declaration of War' are all 9 or 10 out of 10 for me. Burzum are super close though - hence my bright idea to have them battle it out musically. But Mayhem easily tip the scales when I count all that other stuff about them. Hail Euronymous 666. 

Those papers, dear Balor, are photocopies of letters that Euronymous wrote to a Turkish guy around 1990 when they were trying to tour with the Dead lineup. The series letters outline what Euro and the band are up to, plans to record 'De Mysteriis', passport photos of Euro and Dead, travel arrangements, itineraries, stuff like that. I actually explain the collection in some detail in the 'Post Photos of Your Metal Collection' thread in the 'Photography' forum. Check it out. 

Cool!  I will look at the thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
On 25.6.2017 at 3:15 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

Your delivery needs work.

I think the joke is that Burzum never has, and never will, perform live ;) 

Edit: Burzum, even though I can't stand Vikernes as a person. I never quite got into Mayhem, the only song I really like is Freezing Moon. Maybe if my fellow countrymen show up on Wacken this year and I can see them live, I'll change my mind. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, vinnidark said:

I think the joke is that Burzum never has, and never will, perform live ;) 

Edit: Burzum, even though I can't stand Vikernes as a person. I never quite got into Mayhem, the only song I really like is Freezing Moon. Maybe if my fellow countrymen show up on Wacken this year and I can see them live, I'll change my mind. 

Unlikely. The current incarnation of the band, which I call Teloch and the Cheque-Cashers, are about as likely to win new fans live as my mother in law and her church friends are if they were to tap out ‘Silvester Anfang’ on their knitting needles.

If ‘Live in Leipzig’, ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ and ‘Grand Declaration of War’ don’t do it for you then it’s not in your blood and you’ll never understand, to employ an old Manowar quote. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 years later...

I'd have to say Burzum and that's a recent phenomenon for me. I did not used to really listen to Burzum until I bought the double LP of Burzum/Aske last year. I had known about Burzum and everything since I was younger and read Lords of Chaos but I never really sat down and listened to it or got an appreciation for exactly what he was doing until I bought Hvis Lyset Tar Oss a few months ago, and then I immediately went and ordered Filosofem and really got into Burzum through that trilogy of albums.

Mayhem on the other hand, I never really got into for whatever reason. I think it's because the first Mayhem album I heard was A Grand Declaration of War rather than De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (A seminal black metal album that I surprisingly do not own), and I was put off by where I had started, so I never really went back and listened to Mayhem after that.

Varg Vikernes is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, but it has to be said that he created some of the best black metal of all time. I'm not really sure exactly how he pulled it off either, because he doesn't seem to have that much musical talent or ability on the surface, having seen some of his YouTube videos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

Varg Vikernes is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, but it has to be said that he created some of the best black metal of all time. I'm not really sure exactly how he pulled it off either, because he doesn't seem to have that much musical talent or ability on the surface, having seen some of his YouTube videos.

Don't underestimate the power of fanatical obsession and having no friends as a teen as driving force. I've never cared for Burzum, the white supmreacy is an instant turn-off, I'll never give him the time of day, but there's no denying that him and Mayhem are some of the cornerstones of all black metal and dungeon synth as we know it today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I bought like four of his books on paganism and read them. They were written at maybe an 8th grade level and didn't really have anything groundbreaking to say about the "religion", so I gave them to my friend who is into black metal and collects books. When we were installing windows and doors together, we used to write in port-o-johns "Who is Louis Cachet?" (his post-prison legal name) & we also used to watch his videos when they were still up on YouTube and get a laugh out of them. The guy is clearly on the spectrum with how obsessed he is with paganism, the supposed collapse of modern civilization that he swears is right around the corner, and tabletop role playing games so it almost feels kind of bad to chuckle at him but then you realize that he murdered a guy and did a "life sentence" in Norway for it and that this killing set black metal back by at least twenty years. Also, nobody buys the "Self-Defense" story-- he killed Euronymous because Euronymous said that he was "more black metal" than him. It's the same kind of stupid shit that goes down in scenes all over the world except he took it to the ultimate point whereas most people just have fallings out over it.

I have Burzum shirts, I've got a Burzum tattoo on my back already and am getting another one on my arm (The woman blowing the horn from Filosofem to add to my black metal sleeve) but even I realize that Varg the person is a bit touched in the head, so his music has to be allowed to speak for itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Early Burzum just breathes feelings of isolation, to my ears anyway. I think being in touch with strong feelings in a clear way is the most important ingredient for music like that. It doesn't take an inordinate amount of intelligence and it certainly doesn't take good moral character. Varg's personal lameness and the attention around the murder turned me off to his music for years. I've developed a real appreciation for it but I totally get why someone might choose to steer clear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
On 10/14/2021 at 1:18 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

Varg's personal lameness and the attention around the murder turned me off to his music for years.

I did not like Burzum as a youth. I had a very limited understanding of what black metal was, because I got into the genre through Emperor, Dark Funeral, Cradle of Filth, and Dimmu Borgir. I didn't understand Burzum, because it didn't sound like what I had understood black metal to sound like at that point in time. Only after I got a little bit older and read about black metal did I start to appreciate Burzum for how groundbreaking it really was. Eventually I went out and bought a copy of Burzum/Aske at my local record store and even then, it took me a while to really get into it and become capable of understanding what he was going for. The first album and Aske are not that great, but what really got me into Burzum was Hvis Lyset Tar Oss & Filosofem. By the time I picked up those albums, I was able to understand what was so important about Burzum. And now, I have the first four albums on vinyl and am listening to Det Som Engang Var right now as I type this out (which was the most recent one I managed to get my hands on, this week).

Now as far as Mayhem goes, I have never listened to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in it's entirety. The first Mayhem I ever heard was "A Grand Declaration of War" and I did not like it one bit. Again, I'm dealing with the same thing that I dealt with regarding Burzum: I don't "get" Mayhem much in the same way that I don't "get" Darkthrone. I realize that both of these bands were incredibly important to black metal, I just don't understand why because what I've heard doesn't seem too grand or majestic. One of these days, I am going to sit down and listen to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and try to figure out what it is that I am missing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

for me, id say mayhem. i think mayhem is when the band members, temporarily including varg, all came together. for me, burzum is vargs own side project, but mayhem as a whole feels much bigger than that, if you get what i mean. mayhem has that depth, that feeling, its varied, de mysteriis dom sathanas is dark and brooding while deathcrush is harsh and a bit crazy. (well its all crazy but yeah) they have a dark past; rich in promoting image and fear surrounding said image. burzums music is good indeed, i like the stuff but just not as much as i like mayhem. the ambient stuff is amazing, i listen to it for meditating lol, but i like mayhem for their music as a whole. 

On 9/17/2017 at 9:47 AM, Requiem said:

Mayhem are my favourite band, basically, as described in my initial post. It's not that I consider all of their albums to be superior to other bands', but as an entity, they win.

As for Burzum - obviously those first four albums are very special, but Burzum/Varg just doesn't have the same depth of variety and Varg is less interesting to me compared with the various members of Mayhem. Pretty much everything after 'Filosofem' is a cool curiosity at best, boring and empty at worst. 'Esoteric Warfare', as middling as it is, is still vastly preferable for me compared with the last couple of post-prison Burzum albums. 

As you may not have seen my collection I post it here for your personal perusal (I've posted it before but I'm a proud daddy and want to share it with the world):

mayhem_collection_may_17.jpg

thats an INSANE collection dude-

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
47 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

I forgot this thread even existed. I can’t seperate Varg from his music so Burzum will never appeal to me. Deathcrush and DMDS are the only Mayhem records I like though.

Daemon was a good comeback album IMO, and by that I mean a return to their, ahem, "spiritual" roots.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

I think my burzum is better. "De maisteriis dom sathanas." It doesn't get any better than being the 'key to the door'. And 'varg' is the only one in the group. That's why their album is so good it's good for a one-man performance. 'As Nargaroth said, 'The day Burzum killed mayhem.' So 'burzum' is of course better. In the last days of 'Mayhem' they exaggerated their image and left 'Mayhem' to die for a number of other reasons. in terms of music
To think about it, Burzum makes more sense to me.

6 minutes ago, helvete said:

I think my burzum is better. "De maisteriis dom sathanas." It doesn't get any better than being the 'key to the door'. And 'varg' is the only one in the group. That's why their album is so good it's good for a one-man performance. 'As Nargaroth said, 'The day Burzum killed mayhem.' So 'burzum' is of course better. In the last days of 'Mayhem' they exaggerated their image and left 'Mayhem' to die for a number of other reasons. in terms of music
To think about it, Burzum makes more sense to me.

The music and  Burzum makes sounds more like black metal than mayhem. Burzum, so no matter how many times the varg played with mayhem, the man did wonders on his own. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Join Metal Forum

    joinus-home.jpg

  • Our picks

    • Whichever tier of thrash metal you consigned Sacred Reich back in the 80's/90's they still had their moments.  "Ignorance" & "Surf Nicaragura" did a great job of establishing the band, whereas "The American Way" just got a little to comfortable and accessible (the title track grates nowadays) for my ears.  A couple more records better left forgotten about and then nothing for twenty three years.  2019 alone has now seen three releases from Phil Rind and co.  A live EP, a split EP with Iron Reagan and now a full length.

      Notable addition to the ranks for the current throng of releases is former Machine Head sticksman, Dave McClean.  Love or hate Machine Head, McClean is a more than capable drummer and his presence here is felt from the off with the opening and title track kicking things off with some real gusto.  'Divide & Conquer' and 'Salvation' muddle along nicely, never quite reaching any quality that would make my balls tingle but comfortable enough.  The looming build to 'Manifest Reality' delivers a real punch when the song starts proper.  Frenzied riffs and drums with shots of lead work to hold the interest.


      There's a problem already though (I know, I am such a fucking mood hoover).  I don't like Phil's vocals.  I never had if I am being honest.  The aggression to them seems a little forced even when they are at their best on tracks like 'Manifest Reality'.  When he tries to sing it just feels weak though ('Salvation') and tracks lose real punch.  Give him a riffy number such as 'Killing Machine' and he is fine with the Reich engine (probably a poor choice of phrase) up in sixth gear.  For every thrashy riff there's a fair share of rock edged, local bar act rhythm aplenty too.

      Let's not poo-poo proceedings though, because overall I actually enjoy "Awakening".  It is stacked full of catchy riffs that are sticky on the old ears.  Whilst not as raw as perhaps the - brilliant - artwork suggests with its black and white, tattoo flash sheet style design it is enjoyable enough.  Yes, 'Death Valley' & 'Something to Believe' have no place here, saved only by Arnett and Radziwill's lead work but 'Revolution' is a fucking 80's thrash heyday throwback to the extent that if you turn the TV on during it you might catch a new episode of Cheers!

      3/5
      • Reputation Points

      • 10 replies
    • I
      • Reputation Points

      • 2 replies
    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/52-vltimas-something-wicked-marches-in/
      • Reputation Points

      • 3 replies

    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/48-candlemass-the-door-to-doom/
      • Reputation Points

      • 2 replies
    • Full length number 19 from overkill certainly makes a splash in the energy stakes, I mean there's some modern thrash bands that are a good two decades younger than Overkill who can only hope to achieve the levels of spunk that New Jersey's finest produce here.  That in itself is an achievement, for a band of Overkill's stature and reputation to be able to still sound relevant four decades into their career is no mean feat.  Even in the albums weaker moments it never gets redundant and the energy levels remain high.  There's a real sense of a band in a state of some renewed vigour, helped in no small part by the addition of Jason Bittner on drums.  The former Flotsam & Jetsam skinsman is nothing short of superb throughout "The Wings of War" and seems to have squeezed a little extra out of the rest of his peers.

      The album kicks of with a great build to opening track "Last Man Standing" and for the first 4 tracks of the album the Overkill crew stomp, bash and groove their way to a solid level of consistency.  The lead work is of particular note and Blitz sounds as sneery and scathing as ever.  The album is well produced and mixed too with all parts of the thrash machine audible as the five piece hammer away at your skull with the usual blend of chugging riffs and infectious anthems.  


      There are weak moments as mentioned but they are more a victim of how good the strong tracks are.  In it's own right "Distortion" is a solid enough - if not slightly varied a journey from the last offering - but it just doesn't stand up well against a "Bat Shit Crazy" or a "Head of a Pin".  As the album draws to a close you get the increasing impression that the last few tracks are rescued really by some great solos and stomping skin work which is a shame because trimming of a couple of tracks may have made this less obvious. 

      4/5
      • Reputation Points

      • 4 replies
×
×
  • Create New...