Ulver continue to push into experimental, exploratory territories, but this time, they’ve struck a crooked seam which offers up an array of different minerals and gems. In some respects, it continues the trajectory of ‘Terrestrials’, their 2014 collaboration with Sunn O))), but in others, it couldn’t be more different.
‘England’s Hidden’ builds an atmospheric platform full of monastic portent before ‘Glammer Hammer’ glides in as a mesmerising piece of post-rock which bursts into a truly epic succession of crescendos from the mid-point.
‘Moody Stix’ is appropriately titled, a brooding post-punk exploration dominated by tribal drumming which builds to a thunderous drum-heavy finale, while the 10-minute ‘Cromagnosis’ makes a sudden an unexpected transition around two-thirds of the way in, shifting up a gear from soaring prog workout to a driving funk grove that would be at home on a 70s cop show. And you know what? It’s absolutely fucking awesome.
Shortly after, the album descends into drone. This isn’t a criticism, but a statement of fact as a succession of tracks twist and taper their way through expansive contrails of organic, droning ambience.
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From nowhere (almost literally), the epic ‘Nowhere (Sweet Sixteen)’ surges, expansive, anthemic and the album embarks on an altogether different path.
That the material on ‘ATGCLVLSSCAP’ is so varied is both a positive and a negative: it isn’t necessarily the most coherent of albums, and there’s almost a sense of this 80-minute behemoth emerging as a hybrid of two completely different projects. But, by the same token, its unpredictability is a point of interest, and there’s a sense of journey between beginning and end. Moreover, its testament to the creative diversity of Ulver and the band’s unwillingness to allow themselves to remain in any one place for long.
Ulver Online
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