ULVER — Nattens Madrigal: Aatte Hymne Til Ulven I Manden (review)

ULVER — Nattens Madrigal: Aatte Hymne Til Ulven I Manden album cover Album · 1997 · Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
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Ulver, The Trilogie Part III: Nattens Madrigal - Aatte Hymne til Ulven i Manden (1997)

By the time of their third album Nattens Madrigal - Aatte Hymne til Ulven i Manden Norwegian band Ulver had already covered two different forms of music. On Bergtatt - Et Eeventyr i 5 Capitler (1995) they played atmospheric black metal and on Kveldssanger (1996) they played dark folk. With Nattens Madrigal the band returned to black metal for what would ultimately be the final time, but produced something completely different to Bergtatt.

I guess you have to hand the award for diversity to Ulver given the number of genres they've covered in their career, but in terms of black metal the difference between Bergtatt and Nattens Madrigal isn't something I think can really be applauded. You've heard of progressive metal, well this must be what regressive metal would sound like in theory. On Bergtatt you have an album that can be considered groundbreaking within the black metal genre. But on Nattens Madrigal you instead have something that for the most part exemplifies all the things that the genre's detractors just love to hate: very lo-fi guitars with little variance in song-writing. The kind of stuff, the traditional black metal sound as it were, that even though I personally understand and like it to a degree always seems to be the source for all black metal to get a bad reputation.

The last paragraph probably comes over as excessively harsh because in context and based on its own merits for what it is I do actually find Nattens Madrigal to be a pretty solid example of this style, but it all feels like one big step backwards from where they started with Bergtatt. It's like it was an album the band just needed to get out of their system before they went off to explore other musical genres, or something. The best track in my view is the last one VIII: Of Wolf and the Night, as it seems that behind the fuzz of the raw guitars there are more ideas going on that suggest that the creative band who made Bergtatt are still in there somewhere.

Decent for what it is, but disappointing too since they proved themselves to be much better than this sort of thing on their very first album, Nattens Madrigal is one of those albums that I have a love/hate relationship with. The fans of the traditional raw and cold Norwegian black metal sound will likely love it though. I'll rate it based on its own merits as is fair, but most of time when I want to listen to some Ulver it'll be Bergtatt I'll be returning to.
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