19 songs / 81 minutes
Jester / Voices Of Wonder
- 10 -
|
19 songs / 81 minutes |
This is one thing I certainly wouldn't have expected... Ulver, formerly a black metal band from Norway, have joined forces with musicians from Darkthrone and Emperor to produce this fantastic double-CD-album which has - believe it or not - nothing to do with their black metal past. They have somehow written a soundtrack for old Willi Blake's 'The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell', and put it in a very original musical envelope. They are mixing lots of Bathory influences ('Hammerheart' and 'Twilight Of The Gods') with modern English trip-hop sounds, and sometimes there's even a hint of romantic gothic sounds. The guitars are still hard enough to consider this album as rock music (maybe metal but who knows?), but the overall approach is so daring that this may be one of the most important albums of 1999. Just listen to song number 7 on the first CD, and you may think that Portishead and Bathory had found themselves to mix the best of both worlds. Probably most people will be to conservative in their musical approach to love this album, but if you're really looking for something new, original and good, buy this double-CD. The best stuff from Norway since the last Motorpsycho double-CD (and why is everybody making 80-minutes double-CDs nowadaya as 78 minutes would still fit on a single CD..?). |
