NATTENS MADRIGAL - AATTE HYMNE TIL ULVEN I MANDEN

After the purely folk piece that was "Kveldssanger" Ulver released this piece of music. I honestly don't know if I can think of a more extreme 180. This album is pure, straight up black metal. For those who are not quite sure what that is, (at least musically....we all know about the church burnings) black metal is a very raw, abrasive genre of music. Usually features long, repetitive songs of manic tremolo picking, blast beats and shrieking vocals. It is often, purposely, produced with low quality.

This album hits everyone of those points. Every song is at least 4 and a half minutes long and nothing but blast beats, a distorted buzz that I can only assume is guitar, (being frantically picked into oblivion) and shrieking. There is the occasional, and I mean occasional riff, and the only real break is a 40 second acoustic section in the first song, (which is quite nice) and the very end of some songs.

There is the occasional solo which for black metal is quite unconventional. The vocals are actually tolerable. They are not the usual really high pitched black metal shriek but more of a throaty growling. Also, they can be a but buried in the wall of sound anyway so it may not matter. Finally, you want low quality? I have heard some lo-fi music in my day, but this album is truly low-fi. Hell, even for black metal the quality of this album is impressively low.

So that is it. This album is as straightforward black metal as you can get. A wall of distorted, static guitars and blast beats, extremely low quality and a total lack of song structure. That is no fooling around black metal. I personally am not a fan of black metal. I am not sure how someone can enjoy five + minutes of nothing but tremolo picking and blast beats. I can't even give this album a two, because a lot of Ulver fans may not like this, since it is absolutely nothing like their other work. It is not like most others works a prog fan will come across. Only recommended if you are a fan of black metal.

One Star

*JJ runs into the forest shrieking*