Are Ulver still a black/avant gardwhatever metal band? Not really. This is not metal in the sense that will make metalheads pee their pants. It won’t make anyone headbang and it certainly won’t make anyone crave for a mosh pit. But still… there is something of that dark environment in Wars of the Roses.
First things first. Ulver have changed into an almost post-rock sound in this album, while making it accessible to listen to. They were already at the top of the experimental, non-conventional musical world in metal. The next step? Make it confusing. Is it dark? Yes it is. Is it oppressive in the ambient black-metal kind of way? No, it's surprisingly light in sound and dark in the atmosphere that it portrays.
Listening to this album, i found myself thinking that many of the sounds in it could be found in such different bands as Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues (Stone Angels is almost a tribute to spoken-word Moody Blues), Röyksopp (with the eletronic sounds hovering behind so many of these songs) and even a pinch of Sigur Rós.
Kristoffer Rygg does an amazing job with the clean vocals here, there is absolutely nothing i can say of bad from him. As stupid as it may seem, his voice actually soars above everything else, while at the same time never intruding on the actual music being played.
Listeners of pleasantly melancholic tones underneath and an ethereal vibe of a past in metal will no doubt like this. My favorites are by far Norwegian Gothic that actually reminds me of a cross between an 80's ambient prog rock and a movie soundtrack, and September IV, a music that has such a beautiful ethereal sound that results in being quite uplifting, only to evolve into a frenetic sound of prog-rock as time passes.
Give the album a couple of tries, there are too many layers in this wonderful work to dismiss it after just 3 tries.
I recommend it.
10/10
First things first. Ulver have changed into an almost post-rock sound in this album, while making it accessible to listen to. They were already at the top of the experimental, non-conventional musical world in metal. The next step? Make it confusing. Is it dark? Yes it is. Is it oppressive in the ambient black-metal kind of way? No, it's surprisingly light in sound and dark in the atmosphere that it portrays.
Listening to this album, i found myself thinking that many of the sounds in it could be found in such different bands as Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues (Stone Angels is almost a tribute to spoken-word Moody Blues), Röyksopp (with the eletronic sounds hovering behind so many of these songs) and even a pinch of Sigur Rós.
Kristoffer Rygg does an amazing job with the clean vocals here, there is absolutely nothing i can say of bad from him. As stupid as it may seem, his voice actually soars above everything else, while at the same time never intruding on the actual music being played.
Listeners of pleasantly melancholic tones underneath and an ethereal vibe of a past in metal will no doubt like this. My favorites are by far Norwegian Gothic that actually reminds me of a cross between an 80's ambient prog rock and a movie soundtrack, and September IV, a music that has such a beautiful ethereal sound that results in being quite uplifting, only to evolve into a frenetic sound of prog-rock as time passes.
Give the album a couple of tries, there are too many layers in this wonderful work to dismiss it after just 3 tries.
I recommend it.
10/10
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