Album of Last Week: Ulver - Kveldssanger (1995)

A vicious tag team of illness and real-world concerns (damn them!) kept me from posting much last week, so I'm going to make up for it by posting about two albums this week.

Ulver is a band that truly defies classification. They began their existence as a Folk-influenced Black Metal outfit, and later branched out into avant-garde electronica after 1998. Ulver's first three albums have retrospectively been given the title of The Trilogie. 1995's Kveldssanger was the second installment, and is the subject of my focus in this episode of Album of the Week.

What strikes the listener first is that Kveldssanger is utterly acoustic. The sound is so very different from the rest of Ulver's curriculum vitae that one might not think it was the same band. The second aspect of the album which strikes the listener is the atmosphere. The title of the album in English is "Evening Songs," and the music is well-suited to that description. The music is peaceful, with just the right balance of melancholy and contentment; inevitably, when listening to Kveldssanger I find myself envisioning summer evenings in an idyllic countryside where I have never been, yet is strangely familiar. Lyrics are sparse throughout, coming primarily in the form of two brief a cappella interludes--namely "Ord" and "Sielens Sang".

It's difficult to pick out the best tracks--every song on the album is good, and this is the sort of album which bears listening in its completion--but "Høyfjeldsbilde," "Naturmystikk," and "Halling" are my personal favorites, the first because it manages to capture that summer dusk feeling better than any other song on the album, the second because of it's incorporation of woodwinds and the third because it is perhaps the most peaceful song on the album, so much so that it feels almost happy.

Kveldssanger is one of those rare albums where I can chose a track at random and enjoy it utterly. Combine that fact with it's idyllic atmosphere, and the end result is one of my favorite albums of all time. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

Shadows of The Sun

Few bands are less predictable than Ulver. Their music has ranged from the primal Black Metal of Nattens Madrigal to the idyllic Folk of Kveldssanger to the dissonant electronic experimentation of Blood Inside. Ulver continues their time-honored tradition of breaking with tradition with their latest release, Shadows of the Sun.

This time around, Garm and company have presented us with a quiet, melancholic and down-tempo opus; it sounds like nothing so much as a darkened evolution of Sigur Ros. This, I assure you is a good thing. While it may be nigh on impossible to discern individual notes within these songs, the emotional punch that Ulver's array of ambient sound packs is nonetheless potent--indeed, it is in that sense comparable to Kveldssanger, though Shadows of the Sun is entirely electronic.

Each soung on the album seems to flow into the next ("All the Love", for example, transitions seamlessly into "Like Music"). Each contributes to the album's atmosphere of gloom and sadness while at the same time maintaining its own unique aura. "Eos," "Vigil" and "Solitude" (a cover of Black Sabbath's homonymous song from 1971's Master of Reality) are among the standout tracks, the latter being a particularly poignant variation on the original version.

Though it will surely appeal to fans of Ulver's later material more than those who favor the band's earlier work, Shadows of the Sun is an excellent album, and well worth repeated listenings.

New Ulver Album Out Today

Ulver's latest album, Shadows of the Sun, will be released today. I can't be entirely sure until I've actually heard the album, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be damn good. It is Ulver, after all. Some tracks from the album have been available for preview listening on Ulver's myspace, so go give them a listen if you're interested (as you should be.)

Hopefully I'll be getting a copy of this album soon.