Review by Ben for Burzum - Aske (1993)

More about the message than the music, but made worthwhile for the re-recorded A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit.

Burzum’s Aske EP is more renowned for the message behind it rather than the music it contains. The word Aske itself means Ash in Norwegian and when you combine that with the album cover it becomes very clear what Kristian Vikernes was referring to. The ruins that adorn this three track release are all that was left of the Fantoft Stave Church after it was burnt to the ground on the 6th of June 1992. This was one of numerous church burnings that would occur in Norway the same year and it would eventually become evident that Kristian, along with several accomplices from the black metal scene, were behind a large percentage of them. He was never convicted for the Fantoft arson, but considering he was convicted for Holmenkollen Chapel in Oslo (August 21 with Faust), Skjold Church in Vindafjord (September 13 with Samoth) and Asane Church in Bergen (December 24 with Jørn Inge Tunsberg), to go along with his blatant advertising of the event on Aske, makes it almost certain he did it. Kristian never admitted his involvement, but he did suggest openly that the church was burned as an act of retaliation against Christianity for placing a church on sacred, pagan grounds. The first 1000 copies of Aske were packaged with a lighter, an obvious call to arms for fans of Burzum to help Kristian rid Norway of Christianity.

Aske was recorded in August 1992, which was four months after Burzum’s second full length album Det som engang var. However, Kristian decided to release Aske first on Deathlike Silence in March 1993), while he set up his own label Cymophane, on which Det som engang var would be the first release in August 1993. To make matters a bit more confusing, second track Dominus Sathanas was actually recorded in the Det som engang var session, meaning only Stemmen Fra Tårnet and the re-recorded A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit were part of the Aske session. These two tracks are notable in the Burzum discography for being the only ones that Kristian didn’t handle all instruments alone. After the success of the debut album, he’d given some consideration to the idea of playing live. Obviously he would require a full line-up to do so and began auditioning drummers and bassists to become members of Burzum. Fenriz from Darkthrone and Hellhammer from Mayhem were among the drummers that tried out but it was Eric Oliver Lancelot (aka AiwarikiaR from Ulver) that Kristian would choose. On bass he would select Samoth from Emperor and the three of them rehearsed as a full band a few times in 1992. Burzum never did perform live and Lancelot and Samoth were quickly let go, but not before Samoth took part in the recording of the main tracks Aske.

These tracks are fairly typical for Burzum at this stage, but it’s apparent that some of the thrashier sections found on the debut and Det som engang var are now giving way to the cold, hypnotic black metal that goes hand in hand with the Burzum name. Stemmen Fra Tårnet (which means The Voice From the Tower) is the main attraction, with Dominus Sathanas (Master Satan) being a short instrumental and A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit a re-recording of a track off the debut. Thankfully it’s a pretty cool track, but it doesn’t quite move me the way Burzum normally does, and finishes so abruptly that the listener is jarred back to reality, all but ruining the spellbinding effect of the repetition. Dominus Sathanas is a reasonably effective guitar instrumental, with a haunting tone, but at three minutes it also doesn’t add an enormous amount of value. This leaves only A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit, which fortunately is a brilliant version of an already great track. Many fans that own the debut album with Aske as bonus tracks will only know this version as the original was replaced to prevent the track appearing twice. The Aske version is a minute longer and contains better production and performances without losing any of the emotional weight, making it the better of the two by some distance. In my opinion it’s this track that makes Aske worthwhile, but the inclusion of all three tracks on the Misanthropy debut reissue make tracking down the original EP a waste of time and money.