This is it! The very first album that suggested and convinced me that black metal is a true form of art. "Dunkelheit" was the first black metal song that actually caught my attention. i heard something else in it than just mindless screaming and bad instrumentation. So this review can hardly be anything but subjective (even mindless) praise for something that has been forever burned into my soul.

The music is cold and hollow; its multi-layered wall of guitars takes hold of, and mesmerizes the listener, guiding him into unknown dimensions, while the mercilessly beat drums, as though being punished, hold the structure together. The music is repetitive enough to be called ritualistic. In the distorted screaming of Varg Vikernes lies the full depth of cold void, of emptiness. The beauty and pain strike through the whole like a sword piercing through flesh. The concept of beauty was never again the same for me after this; true beauty is not about aesthetic pleasure for the senses, but of truth. And truth is cold and empty.

All Burzum albums have had their share of ambient works blended with black metal. And fittingly on this album, the ambient piece has been taken further than ever before, being extremely repetitive and long.

i am fortunate enough to own the digibook -version of the album. The book contains stories of time long lost, or of time never existed in this world, who knows. The art-work is stunning, and i cannot imagine a simple digipak doing justice to the whole.

This album is easily the culmination point and, perhaps, the highlight of Varg's "career" (it certainly was his last work as primarily a Satanist; regardless of how he now abhors the word...well, suffice to say that his goals are no longer of spiritual elevation but of social recognition, and if you take the concept of yahve and call it Odin...). Perhaps even the fate of Norwegian black metal scene was tied to the fate of Varg Vikernes on some level (think of Jung and synchronicity, or don Juan and Infinity). It is evident that the reign of Norwegian black metal ended with this release. As if the scene had now created all that it was born to create...and what are now left are the last dying embers.

Whatever black metal comes out from Norway these days is of completely different (and lesser) nature (if there still is a Norwegian band making coherent and essential black metal, i do not know of it, and it is certainly not from the same scene). There is also something different in this album. Something more profound when a man is alone in charge of an entire music. Of course provided that the man is a true genius. That is one reason why Burzum leaves all others behind.

Completely essential with this album is also the video "Dunkelheit". Something that no one should be without.

The end of Norwegian black metal could have not been more glorious...

"when night falls / she cloaks the world / in impenetrable darkness. / a chill rises / from the soil / and contaminates the air / suddenly... / life has new meaning."

© 2001 rotblood