NATTENS MADRIGAL - AATTE HYMNE TIL ULVEN I MANDEN

Nattens Madrigal is the third studio album from experimental extreme metal( avant garde rock act Ulver. Ulver´s two first albums Bergtat (1994) and Kveldssanger (1995) had proven that Ulver was not your average black metal band even though the music on Bergtat is definitely black metal. Kveldssanger was a big surprise for many people though because Ulver didn´t follow up their success on Bergtat with another black metal album. Kveldssanger is an acoustic and folky album. Nattens Madrigal takes us back into Black metal territory and is IMO Ulver´s most extreme album.

The music is not without melody though and we´re still treated with a couple of beautiful acoustic parts here and there. The fast tremolo riffing is actually pretty melodic as well. I´m reminded more than one time of the legendary ( yet very unknown) Swedish death metal band Unanimated and their album In the Forest of the Dreaming Dead (1993) ( and remember I said it was the band and not the movie, so don´t come complaining to me when you´re treated with countless zombies and dead body parts coming alive after being injected with a green fluid). The vocals are raspy black metal style. The pace is mostly fast but not extremely fast ( hyper blasts).

The musicianship is excellent. The technical skills are great but it´s more the compositional skills that I´m impressed about.

The production is a problem for me. It´s very thin and the guitar has a horrible sound. The worst part is that this sound is made on purpose. This is how they wanted it to sound. It´s an aquired taste I´m sure because I have friends who like the thin black metal sound. I grew up listening to full and bass deep death metal production from Morrisound and Sunlight studios and I just never got on the black metal wagon ( with a few exceptions), partially because of the thin and to my ears annoying sound quality many of the bands chose to use on purpose. So you might enjoy it more than I do.

Nattens Madrigal is a great album and that´s even though it has a production that I don´t enjoy much. But on the other hand the production does take away the fourth star I would have given Nattens Madrigal and I will only give it 3 stars. Ulver would totally change their style after Nattens Madrigal so this is the last chance to hear why Ulver was one of the genre defining and biggest black metal acts in the nineties.