Ulver - s/d

hyperbolic review here:
http://decibelmagazine.com/0905_ulver_bloo.aspx

(and i totally did the ...ON ACID! trick, but i don't care cuz you have to smack people around in order to make them buy something weird. or at least i do cuz i'm no good at being subtle. i heart hyperbole.)

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, August 29, 2005 1:56 AM (eleven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and i totally got the "end of everything" thing from that ILM MBV thread from a while back.
― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, August 29, 2005 1:58 AM (eleven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

four months pass...
Blood Inside is something special - something else entirely!! My metal pals claim it isn't even metal, but it is. It's metal that's had all the metal "bits" taken out and replaced with everything else under the sun.
― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Monday, January 9, 2006 2:21 PM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one month passes...
It still ended up making a bunch of the metal polls, and a lot of metal people did like it a lot.
― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, February 11, 2006 3:24 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

of course it's metal. i dunno, i really appreciate it. i find that with all hard rock/metal/punk there seems to be a lot of people scared to deviate fromt he original flow.
― Vintage Latin (dog latin), Saturday, February 11, 2006 3:28 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

s/o good posts era, s/o no caps mafia

Everything Ulver does feels like a bad imitation of something they don't really "get." That goes for their black metal era too

I... kinda agree. About the more recent albums, anyway. I like the black metal stuff and the Silence/Singing EPs, but I've come to the realization that the proggy era just doesn't engage me like I wish it would, and there's this creeping feeling that it's because they just don't sound comfortable doing it. I want to like them! But even when they meet me halfway by doing a bunch of psych covers I'm just not feeling it.

it's really not true though. they take a lot of chances and they aren't afraid to fail. but they know what they're doing. the stuff that has worked has REALLY worked and they were totally inside it and made it tick. in troo black metal fashion, i honestly think don't think they give a fuck. there are definitely some past releases where it feels like you are listening to someone learn how to do something. but in a good way.

i haven't heard new stuff in a while though. i can't believe i wrote that blood inside review 11 years ago! we must all be really old now.

but i've also kinda always liked how fucked up and awkward they could be. they make a band like radiohead sound like rebecca of sunnybrook farm. that art opera blake thing they did is completely demented and really doesn't work in some ways at all and sounds like people in a gulag somewhere who had only read about art music and then approximated it in DIY fashion but who the hell else would make something like that? on the other hand, blood inside is near perfection if you ask me as an art-prog statement and still sounds great and stands completely apart and not at all awkward. i think that was their most successful work of art. but i've missed stuff.

i would buy the new one. didn't have much interest in the snooz-0)))) collaboration. kinda wish ulver had made an album with scott walker instead of those doofuses for maximum mindfuck.

I'll have to give them another shot sometime, I guess. Like I say I want to feel it! Maybe I need to go wild pitch and check out the William Blake thing, which I haven't heard.

i would buy the new one. didn't have much interest in the snooz-0)))) collaboration. kinda wish ulver had made an album with scott walker instead of those doofuses for maximum mindfuck.

― scott seward, Wednesday, September 21, 2016 2:36 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes!!

the new one is definitely worth checking out, but imo their best recording since blood inside really is the psych covers album

also I do like the spoken-word thing on wars of the roses

war of the roses was the last one I bought

plowing through some of their early stuff and holy shit, Nattens Madrigal is going to give me hearing loss

so can we talk about how this new record rocks? depeche mode is the obvious referent but it's coming at it from this weird angle that i love. jury's still out on which side it lands on of pastiche vs. homage, but the tunes are def there

it lands on the side of being awesome. i made a thread about it

found it

Not hearing what you're all hearing. Sounds like computer generated pastiche most of the time, with the distant clinical emptiness of Lansing-Dreisden. Guess I'll just have to try a few more times

https://ulver.bandcamp.com/album/drone-activity

posted elsewhere already?

i had no idea, omg

I've just picked up a few Ulver albums including the Drone Activity. Hadn't realised they'd released a new one

including the Drone Activity

https://thequietus.com/articles/28828-ulver-interview-3

A longish interview in the Quietus for their new album. It seems to be in the vein of "the Assassination...", which is exciting

Cover of new album:

https://www.normanrecords.com/artwork/medium/48/182048-ulver-flowers-of-evil.jpg

And it's out!

Yes, out today here. Looking forward to getting this.

It feels like he's easing into the sound introduced on the last album and letting himself have more fun with it.

Yes. Sounding good so far.

wow didn't know this was coming, sounding great so far.

weird comparison, but the heavy slow-building atmosphere of the first track 'one last dance' reminds me of blick bassy's 'ngwa,' which is one of my fav songs from last year

the singles didn't stand out to me ahead of time but I can already feel this working on me, I think it's the equal of the last one

To me it has fewer immediate hooks than The Assassination..., but I'm enjoying it and it will grow.

"hour of the wolf" confirmed amazing

actually this just keeps getting better as it goes

agreed with simon it's a more playful version of the sound on the last record... to a nigh-danceable degree on "apocalypse 1993"

when's the D. Lissvik rework album coming out

So far this isn't grabbing me, but I'll give it time. See you in a month!

I feel the need to plug the new Greg Puciato single for anyone who digs recent Ulver

https://youtu.be/VgCMGAvurl0

^^ good stuff

Yes, thanks Simon.

I'm enjoying the new one. Short and sweet. But it doesn't reach the highs of its predecessor. It's a more even listen, if that's the right way to put it. "Apocalypse 1993" might be my favourite for now.

Really like his voice. How many other death metallers secretly have voices like polished oak?

So far this isn't grabbing me, but I'll give it time. See you in a month!

― lukas, Friday, August 28, 2020 12:30 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Duke's correct that the highs aren't as high, but it's consistent and it scratches an itch nothing else does. Keep coming back to this.

https://thequietus.com/articles/30754-ulver-reinterpret-john-carpenter-new-album-scary-muzak

New Ulver. Looking forward to this.

https://ulver.bandcamp.com/album/hexahedron-live-at-henie-onstad-kunstsenter

Also this ^

It's really the first time in 15 years that it clicks, but today I was in the mood for relistening to Nattens Madrigal (in two sittings) and I find it actually much closer to Bergtatt than I thought (in composition).
Also had a blast relistening to Blood Inside. Come to think of it, one thing that unites a good part of their discography is how disconcerting and dense and visceral-cerebral and hypnotic their albums are.