Because while it has a lot of more popular music elements to the sound, there’s so much going on musically, not to mention the vague lyrics and the last few minutes of psychedelic electronic experimentation at the end of it’s length that it’s one of the most genius pieces of music of the year. There’s so much to listen to hear and all so well produced it’s a treat for the ears, from the ambient synths, jazzy saxophone, electronic beats, percussion and vocals that all gel together brilliantly that shows Ulver sounding both accessible and madly eclectic all at once.
#ASSASSINATION OF JULIUS CAESAR ULVER FULL#
The moody relaxed atmosphere of Nemoralia is a great opener setting the tone of the album before it moves into the nine and half minute Rolling Stone where funky electronic music combines with jazzy saxophone before going full on EDM in the verse, with Garm’s vocals higher pitched and clean, with soulful female backing vocals in a brilliant chorus. That chorus has you grinning with both disbelief that Ulver have gone from being usually experimental and out there to music that’s this accessible, and because it’s just so goddamn fantastic. The chorus with the soft “oohs”, and overlapping vocals along with the electronic drumbeat and moody synths is completely brilliant though, with one of the best productions I’ve ever heard, and each instrument and vocal line sounding gorgeous. But when the modulated synths come in with the unusually melodic but always gorgeous (there is just no other way to describe them) vocals from Garm, it’s clear that this is the most accessible Ulver have ever gone – they’ve released what can be best defined as a synthpop album, which is something you wouldn’t even have expected from a band like Ulver. When Nemoralia opens with it’s dub-electronica it’s not too big of a surprise considering electronic is a genre they’ve embraced on a few albums in the past. After two releases last year with the electronica of ATGCLVLSSCAP and celtic tinged soundtrack Riverside, they’re back with their fifteenth album The Assassination of Julius Caesar and even with the history of these ever changing wolves they’ve still managed to surprise in a big way once again. The only thing that’s a given with a new Ulver release is that they always remain experimental, and (usually but not always) centered around Garm’s warm and enigmatic vocal style.
But they’re not a band that’s gone with whatever the flavour of the month is or jumping onto bandwagons, they’ve been the ones pushing the boundaries and with every style they metamorphose into they don’t put a foot wrong – whatever sort of music they make a foray into the results are practically perfect. Since their black metal beginnings on their first album Bergtatt in 1995 they’ve embraced a wide variety of genres including folk, ambient, trip-hop, chamber music, industrial, electronica, drone with their collaboration Terrestrials with Sunn O))), and one could go on.
Ulver may translate to Wolves, but when it comes to this Norwegian group perhaps a better name would be Kameloner, meaning chameleons.
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