Burzum Det som engang var

Burzum 'Det som engang var' (Misanthropy Records, 1994)

For the uninitiated, Burzum is the one man project of Count Grishnackh, Varg Vikernes, or Kristian Vikernes as his totally insane mother knows him. He is best known for being the poster boy of the media frenzy which surrounded the second wave of Norwegian Black Metal.

During 1992 and 1993 Kristian and his fellow Tolkien nerds started a game of Satanic one upmanship which would end tragically for their ring leader, Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth). Kristian carried out a campaign of arson, burning at least four of Norway's wooden stave churches, the most famous being the 12th century Fantoft church. This was all carried out with sole aim of impressing the Satanic 'Inner Circle' who operated from Aarseth's infamous Helvete shop based in Oslo.

Various rivalries began between the greasy little orc lovers as they vied for the position of alpha male and Kristian became quite annoyed that his former mentor and pal, Aarseth, was still holding court amongst the self-proclaimed elite. So he did as any right minded young chap might do and drove 500km round to his friend's flat, in the middle of the night, in order to stab him repeatedly whilst his victim tried to run away clad only in his underpants. Although Kristian has since claimed it was self-defence I find it hard to believe that a person either expecting an attack or about to dish one out would answer their door and let their assailant/victim in, unarmed, whilst clad only in Y fronts, but that's just me.

Rather than keep quiet about his nocturnal fire tomfoolery and casual murder of his mates Kristian thought it would be a beano idea to start getting photographed half naked with loads of scary knives and boast about what he'd been up to and then seemed surprised when he was arrested and promptly flung into jail for 21 years.

Whilst imprisoned Kristian disowned all metal music as it was, in his view, directly related to music originating from Africa. He put it a little less politely than that though. Using this type of logic he soon became a martyr of sorts for the sadly lost dunderheids who stink up the dark corner of metal inhabited by National Socialist Black Metal. Which, believe it or not, is popular sub-genre of metal referred to as NSBM.

Despite his hard man credentials Kristian is a perfect little mummy's boy and so Mrs Vikernes tried to break her son out of jail on a couple of occasions. One time she succeeded in freeing her pride and joy, although he may just have been on some sort of prison leave, as is the case for a high security prisoner in Norway, but he was quickly apprehended in a Volvo heavily loaded with weapons and explosives. As you do.

He is an unrelenting moron, who literally spouts buffoonery, but somehow he has become a person fawned over by a startling variety of people. It staggers me that punks, crusties and hardcore 'kids' think that wearing Burzum patches or t-shirts is acceptable, but accepted it is and nobody seems to care.

Kristian has been on the cover of numerous metal magazines since his release from prison and nobody has batted an eyelid. His record label takes out full page adverts and his albums receive glowing reviews from a spineless press who never question his beliefs or review his work in the context of the sickening comments he makes.

Digby Pearson, of Earache Records fame, is the only person I know who actually met Kristian. When I asked him why his label had not signed any black metal bands during the second wave peak he advised me that he had tried to sign Burzum but was a little taken aback when Kristian advised him that he was the head of the Norwegian Nazis and that he had sold two huge Swastikas that very day, before he had been stopped for a few hours at airport security enduring a very Spinal Tap moment as he had to remove all his spikes and metal regalia. Digby said that was the end for Earache and black metal!

I'd recommend that you read 'Lords of Chaos' if you want to learn more about Kristian, although it is written by a man who obviously saw him as the leader of some new world order led by badly played repetitive riffs mixed with the odd Bontempi composed cack handed attempt at medieval music.

The best thing about this record is that it's worth over £100. Although I'll never sell it as I can imagine the Nazi fetishist who would probably want it and I'd rather I had it than him/her.

Peace