Conor Fynes 'Bergtatt' - Ulver (9/10)

To me, Ulver are one of the all-time most intriguing bands. It would be difficult for me to name another band who is so versatile, and manages to produce masterpieces that vary wildly. Released when frontman Krystoffer Rygg was still in his teens, 'Bergtatt' is considered to be a classic opus of the then-relatively young style of black metal. Ulver have since gone down a path of avant-garde ambient music that now has little to do with metal or even rock, but 'Bergtatt' is enough to plant the band as an essential of black metal. Years before Agalloch or Drudkh made their mark, Ulver laid down the foundation for this arboreal sound in atmospheric black metal. Taking the ambiance of Burzum and taking it two steps further, 'Bergtatt' is as relevant today as it was in 1994.

Many modern metalheads may draw comparisons to Agalloch when listening to 'Bergtatt.' It should be appreciated, however, that Ulver crafted this sound first. The black metal mold had been forged over the decade prior,and Ulver furnishes it with lavish arboreal folk instrumentation, melodic riffs, and even clean vocals; something that was often looked down upon in black metal. 'Bergtatt' was indeed ahead of its time, although nothing on the album feels contrived or forced to sound 'progressive' in the commonly used sense of the word. Split into five chapters, 'Bergtatt' is not afraid to incorporate acoustic guitars as a primary element in the sound. Many bands dabbled with mellower dimensions, but they often were used merely to break up the intense black metal, as opposed to, you know, complimenting the musical experience directly. Of course, no masterpiece would be complete without masterful composition, and this is something that sees no shortage in 'Bergtatt'. Ulver hit a sweet spot that balances harshness and warmth, black metal and folk, melodic sensibilities and melancholic aggression. To mention that Ulver were in their teens when 'Bergatt' was produced only makes the feat more admirable.

Potentially the only time when I could be convinced that 'Bergtatt' is not perfect is with the more puritanical black metal elements here. Like the rest of the album, they are performed with passionate intensity and a sense of purpose, but in the midst of some of the most beautiful acoustic guitars ever heard in metal, and a wonderfully arboreal sense of melody in the cleaner moments, the times when Ulver goes full-force with the blastbeats and dark energy feels underwhelming by comparison.That's not nearly enough to keep me from calling 'Bergtatt' a masterpiece, however. It is essential listening for anyone even remotely interested in black metal; it is rivaled only by Mayhem's 'De Mysteriis Dom Santhanas' as the most glorious classic of black metal.

Warthur When some bands move away from the genres they are mainly know for, the transition is gradual, and occurs over the process of several albums. Not so for Ulver, whose break from black metal was sudden and absolutely complete; from this album onwards, they would never look back.

Here, their music havers mainly in a post-rock sort of space, with occasional forays into trip-hop and just enough outbursts of industrial metal guitar to establish that whilst black metal was off the table, metal itself was still part of the palette. Over these instrumentals various vocalists recite portions from the poetry of William Blake. To my ears, it's a rather disjointed affair, with the metal and trip-hop and post-rock sections sat next to each other without sufficient connecting tissue to really make them feel like part of the same composition, and the end result is a bit of a jumble. This might have been OK as a 40 minute album but as a double album it begins to lose my attention.

Warthur The ambient transitions between songs and the acoustic break in the middle of the opening track prove that Ulver hadn't completely lost all ability to handle a recording studio for Nattens Madrigal - the absolutely dire sound quality on the black metal which takes up the bulk of this piece is 100% on purpose. On this album, Ulver take the lo-fi aesthetic which in moderation can add an interesting aesthetic effect to black metal and takes it to a ludicrous extreme, more so even than the likes of Burzum or Darkthrone who infamously went out of their way to reduce the sound quality of their albums in order to attain the atmosphere they wanted. The end result is an album which, if you aren't in the right mood for it, is an outright chore to listen to.

And yet...

There's a strange transformation which comes over the music when the sound quality is this bad. The instruments - particularly some of the higher-pitched guitar solos - often cease to sound like conventional rock band instruments at all and become more reminiscent of out-of-control industrial machinery or shrieking electronics. The vocals from Garm are so full of anger that they often sound as though he is fighting to get them out, like if he didn't give his all he would be completely lost in the mix. The rhythms and repetitive patterns which make themselves apparent in the music are powerful and hypnotic, and save the piece from being mere noise for noise's sake like, say, Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. And the ambient interludes between songs provide a brief and haunting counterpoint to the full-on ugliness on show here. And the songs are in fact much more varied than they have been made out to be - the intro to Of Wolf and Passion suggests a sort of romantic power black metal, which is a combination I'd never thought I'd here.

After this, Ulver would turn away from black metal for good, but this last album is a challenging but I feel unique aesthetic contribution to the genre, and is certainly the best example I can think of of an album where a deliberate lo-fi recording style leads to a distinctive and individual aesthetic which simply could never have been captured in any other way - an aesthetic which is perfect for the album's concept, the saga of a man turned into a werewolf and who eventually embraces the wolf within him due to the misdeeds and cruelty of humanity. Ulver would leave black metal behind after this release to explore other musical avenues, but to those who have already sampled and enjoyed Ulver's work - particularly Bergtatt, their debut - I recommend it as perhaps one of the most intriguing experiments in extreme metal. That said, you'd be well-advised to manage your expectations accordingly; if you simply don't like lo-fi black metal you're not going to enjoy yourself here.

Warthur Ulver's second album isn't a black metal album at all - it's a collection of acoustic folk compositions, with the focus mainly on acoustic guitar with very occasional drumming and chanted vocals. However, fans of black metal and folk alike may find this album a curious and unique piece for the atmosphere the pieces evoke - it's melancholic, mysterious, and when the choral vocals kick in also takes on a hint of pride and majesty. On the whole, black metal fans may find it presents an intriguing acoustic folk take on the same themes as Ulver's black metal releases, whilst folk fans may find its spooky and haunting atmosphere enjoyable.

Warthur Ulver's debut album is categorised as black metal solely because Bergtatt visits that territory more regularly than any other. But when you have this strange mixture of atmospheric black metal pitched to emphasise a sense of cold otherworldliness as opposed to the aggression of bands such as Mayhem, interspersed with folky acoustic guitar which occasionally moves into the spotlight for a folk interlude, vocals shifting constantly between typical black metal shrieks, strange intonations, and more or less clean singing, and all the other features the band cram into this album, it's clear that what we're dealing with here is a group at the very edge of the avant-garde of black metal as it existed at the time.