Thulêan Mysteries

Bye Bye Burzum.

Although Varg said that this was the soundtrack to his role-playing game, I like to see it as the soundtrack to his short lived but interesting YouTube channel!

To be honest, it doesn't feel like a full-length, but rather like a re-recording, or a compilation album. There is a lot of stuff here (some may argue that some of it is unnecessary), I think the reason might be that Varg wanted to release everything he had as a proper goodbye!

Anyway, lets get to the album!

Some of the tracks are very much medieval songs, and you'll need a very acquired taste to like them! For example, "Heill auk Sæll". The variety of the stuff here is so massive, that every song describes a different sonic era of Burzum. There are re-recorded versions of old songs, like "The Loss of Thulê", which is an ambient version of "The Crying Orc" from the debut album, or "Skin Traveller", which is a re-recorded, softer version of the "He Who travels" song from "Det Som Engang Var".

There are also some songs which were obviously inspired by previous albums, like "The Ruins of Dwarfmount", which was probably inspired by the 1999 album.

All this said, there are some extremely beautiful songs in this album. Most notably; "Heill Óðinn, Sire" and "The Great Sleep", which have fantastic vocal performances by Varg. Seriously, try and beat this shit when it comes to soulful folk!

Another highlight is some of the more heavily ambient stuff, like "ForeBears" and "The Land of Thulê".

All in all, a very enjoyable listen, with some rough edges.