Review by SilentScream213 for Burzum - Filosofem (1996)

This may be a bit brash, but I expected a lauded album made by a once nazi, church burning murderer to be a bit more exciting.

I wasn’t a big fan of Burzum’s other albums, but some tracks sat very well with me, and I could see the evolution of the heavily Ambient/Dungeon Synth-leaning Atmoblack developing. The problem was, the styles weren’t being mixed very well, we’d more so get one and then the other. I was expecting Filosofem – considered Burzum’s masterpiece and one of the greatest Atmospheric Black Metal albums of all time – to finally nail that style he’d been developing.

Aaaand no, he drops the ball for me. The tracks are incredibly boring and repetitive, no riffs to speak of, the guitar fuzz being so abrasive and poorly mixed that actual notes are mostly indiscernible. The ambient part has barely been incorporated into the music, with minimal, repetitive synthed notes playing a very minor background role. Once again, the only track that fully incorporates Ambient is devoid of any Metal at all, making this another failure to truly integrate both styles full and well into a single song.

The vocals, are atrocious, in fact the mixing on every front is so bad that nothing really sounds good, and this coming from someone who can enjoy artists like Bathory with no issue. This is considered depressive, melancholic, music… doesn’t really sound that way to me, it’s mostly just droning on and on without evoking much at all.

However, that’s not to say it’s truly a bad album, it’s just immensely disappointing. The compositions are decent, and the Ambient melodies that can be heard are quite nice. The repetitiveness is not so much an issue and does work well with the atmospheric soundscapes created. It’s decent background music if the horrible production isn’t enough to ruin the experience. But that’s where my compliments end.