Review by Rexorcist for Ulver - Nattens madrigal: Aatte hymne til ulven i manden (1997)
Everybody knows Ulver's debut album, Bergtatt, and how it's widely regarded as a key part of the development of black metal. Its gorgeous atmospheres, soft melodic vocals and beautiful defined a couple generations. It was actually the second black metal album I had ever heard, and is one I often recommend to newcomers in the black metal community.
Where the hell did it all go? Why did I give this album an 86 the first and only time I ever heard it? This time, Ulver deliberately chose to do lo-fi, which is perfectly fine, but they aren't as good at that as they were with the atmospheres. When you think of Ulver making another black metal album, you're hoping for something legendary. But at this point, I think I might've just been giving the album the benefit of a doubt because I wasn't very experienced in judging black metal back then. The mixing is pretty damn bad. It sounds like many other demos I've heard in this same subgenre. You'd think the artists here would find better recording material, like the stuff they used for their debut, maybe? The beauty is all gone because the music is now degraded to standard black metal. The melodies are okay and the riffs are pretty good, so it's got the key black metal energy we need at the very least. In other words, it's not a disaster because the music can at least hit those internal notes enough to be palatable. The only really good thing I can think of concerning the mixing is, yes, you technically do hear everything. But it feels imbalanced. The guitars are too loud, the lo-fi noise doesn't help anything, and the drums need the volume raised.
And the worst thing about the album is the kind of thing you'd likely expect me to say: there is absolutely no real originality here. It's pretty much the same okay stuff from front to back, and it eventually gets boring. Even after reading reviews, I'm seeing things like "It's intentionally worse in certain ways." Well if that's the case, then this certainly didn't surprise me like other intentionally lower quality projects did.
52