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Ulver: Wars of the roses

14/06/11 || The Duff

Four years in the making, that’s pretty nuts thinking it so long since we last got a taste of this fantastic band. I’m not one to know Ulver for their primitive black metal contributions but entirely for their electronica, their ambient stylings to me still relatively obscure but to others leading the genre. I’m also an obsessively unhealthy fan of Garm’s vocals, a deadly mix of crooning and melodic; they unlock gateways to my soul, I tell you!

My hopes were soaring with news of a new record after “Blood Inside” and “Shadows of the Sun”, the two individual but equally hard-hitting on different ends of the emotional spectrum. What with every album being a development from the last if not a complete changeover, four years would make one expect “Wars of the Roses” (originally “Critical Geography” – I get the impression Ulver were at a loss giving this one a title) to be yet another shift in style. The answer is yes and no, and unfortunately a bit of a mixed bag.

Ulver remain as ever experts on the ebbs and the flows, the playing to emotional delicacy and ultimately our desire to be lulled into security despite blasting Anal Vomit Aborted Fetus full volume incessantly every day so as to cope with the demons. But there is a lack of evolution in that “Wars of the Roses” is a mix of the minimal, soothing peace of “Shadows of the Sun” and the bombast, beat-driven verging on maddened genius of “Blood Inside”.

There are touches of stepping out of the boundaries of past endeavors, but these are hit-and-miss. If I were to sum up my thoughts in one sentence, it would be the first six tracks are perfect, my one gripe being unnecessarily long closer “Stone Angels” (fifteen minutes altogether) – I would’ve preferred either an extra track making me feel I wasn’t losing out on just shy of half the record or the removal of the recital of Keith Waldrop’s poem from the music (which sounds akin to the voiceover appearing on Anathema’s 2010 effort “We’re Here Because We’re Here”), leaving it reminiscent of the “Silence” E.P.‘s.

Seeing as I have more than the one sentence though, a couple of extra grievances would be the piano of “Providence” being quite simple in places by Ulver’s standards, the bizarre inclusion of seagulls on “Island” amidst other superfluous sounds. Also, Lemmy, legendary man who has taken enough drugs to understand the meaning of life infinity-times-over has said the only emotion in England is resentment, something underrepresented on track “England”. Sing about chips, beans, football and antisocial, mongodispositions or something, the heart of the nation’s cultural interests; fox hunting was banned some years ago Kris, buddy.

LOL?

The pluses to this disc are grand, though; vocals are magnificent and spine-tingling(ly) unusual, the production is lush, the artwork is intricate and captivating in a way indicative of the album’s content.

Ultimately, I will cherish “Wars of the Roses” close to as much as anything Ulver have done to date, the atmosphere being one quite peculiar, simultaneously warm and distant, uplifting but in an empty, acceptant and disheartening way. We’re at a different step in the band’s career for this reason alone, but the album is not the enormous leap towards perfection we’ve (meaning I’ve) come to expect.

Information
Released: 2011
Label: Kscope
Website: Ulver MySpace
Band
Kristoffer Rygg: vocals, programming
Tore Ylwizaker: keyboards, programmimg
Daniel O’Sullivan: guitars, bass, keyboards, narration

Tracklist
01. February MMX
02. Norwegian Gothic
03. Providence
04. September IV
05. England
06. Island
07. Stone Angels

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