Burzum: Fallen

In countless interviews, Varg Vikernes reminded journalists he's not playing black metal. The insistence was that it's his music, free from any righteous categorization, if it happens to be black metal, so be it. After listening to Fallen, which isn't is English (but that's besides the point), I can't seem to remove the fact that it is a black metal release. More importantly, Burzum had not gone astray from its roots, the music remains to be a coarse assault to the ears, with very little respect in ensuring a balanced EQ as far as guitar tones go. I enjoyed Varg Vikernes' post-confinement manifestation, Belus, because the guitars in there, despite being very repetitious & protrusive, had good inter-play. Just listen to them carefully through head phones & you can hear the variation in certain phrasings. In many twin guitar bands, the two guitarists at work often confine themselves to the specific roles of rhythm & lead players; they often play the riffs in unison. The more interesting establishments would make efforts to vary their riffs, so we hear interesting differentiation through the left & right channels of our speakers/ headphones. It's good to know that Fallen is no different but the stark contrast here lies with the vocals; there are more clean spoken words this time. In fact, some of these are quasi-whispers, there were no efforts to raise vocal intensity. Fallen is a deserving follow up by Varg Vikernes, to say the least.

According to Varg, Fallen was recorded with the above Peavey guitar. Regardless of whichever guitar was employed, it got the job done (tone-wise).