Review by Xephyr for Ulthima - Symphony of the Night (2021)
Death's Shining Melody
After the initial Swedish Melodic Death Metal boom of the 1990's and early 2000's petered out, it feels like the genre has lost its niche due to Technical Death Metal and standard Death Metal producing overall stronger material, apart from a few bands like Insomnium that are still kicking. Modern Melodic Death Metal feels like an undescriptive middle ground between Progressive Metal, standard Death Metal , and a wild card choice of another influence whether that be Folk or Black Metal, and it's generally fairly uneventful because of it. Although Ulthima aren't here to bring any sort of clarity back to Melodic Death Metal, they're ready to reenergize the scene by delivering a symphonic based, Power Metal influenced riff fest that perfectly merges the intensity of Death Metal with the catchy melodies you'd expect out of the subgenre. It'll definitely be overblown for listeners looking for a standard Melodic Death Metal experience, but as an avid Power Metal listener I was bound to enjoy Symphony of the Night.
Competent orchestration can be difficult to pull off, as shown by my general distaste for a good portion of the muddled, uninteresting Symphonic Metal albums that have released recently. Thankfully, Ulthima's balance between strings and Metal is well done and integral to the energy and spectacle of each track. The lead guitar and lead strings are constantly passing off melodies between one another in engaging ways, with none of the parts feeling like afterthoughts or filler. "Black Swan" sets the stage perfectly with its triumphant, theatrical opening into a killer riff that's properly supported by the strings in the back. Symphony of the Night is definitely a Power Metal album at heart, since while the guitars and vocals have that Melodic Death Metal aggression, none of the songs are particularly dark thanks to energetic tempos, bright synths, and insanely catchy choruses. While the vocals are harsh, they don't really feel like it due to there being a surprisingly low amount of actual fry, letting them fit into the rest of the album's style really well. They don't necessarily do anything extraordinary and may be the weakest part of sections like the verses in "Daughter of Twilight" or "Eternity", but they still sound fantastic during the choruses.
Those choruses are the main course of Symphony of the Night with each one being memorable and compelling. Some are better than others, as "Dancing with Shadows" and "Ulthima" pale in comparison to "Black Swan", "Symphony of the Night", or "Tears of Fire", but the guitar and orchestral work still pull through with interesting melodies on these weaker tracks. Ulthima might lean a bit too heavily on their choruses to the point where too much focus is put on them, but ripping verse riffs on "Beyond the Veil" and neat dueling guitar solos on "Belegar" shows that they're able to round out the songs with other interesting elements. The orchestration also plays a huge part on tracks like "Symphony of the Night" and "Eternity" to spice up some otherwise standard riffs and songwriting. Overall, Symphony of the Night is incredibly consistent throughout its runtime even if there isn't a whole lot of variety, as Ulthima basically never pump the breaks on the fast tempos or melodic riff shredding. I'm certainly not complaining as their style was basically made for me and even though they would need some more complex songwriting choices and more interesting orchestral elements to really make their style shine in my opinion, this is an incredibly solid album for people who can stand their Melodic Death Metal sounding shiny and upbeat. This was a unique and incredibly fun find that I hope is a solid starting point for more material from these guys as they're currently filling an exciting niche I didn't know I needed.