Ulver have always delivered dark music in one form or another. Many forms, actually. From black metal to experimental to electronic to progressive to ambient to avant-garde, they’ve permeated every conceivable pretentious genre throughout their 17-year career with profound passion and demonstrative secrecy. Their art, while ever changing, is always high, and now these Norwegian artists, four years removed from their last album, have embraced a whole new expression of accessibility. Having thrived as an independent band for years, Ulver now find themselves with management and backing from a big label, and have taken to doing something in the last few years they never have before: playing live. Wars of the Roses, then, ought to be considered carefully, its structure plastered with new clay, its window treatments pulled back at last. Opener “February MMX” comes on like a vacuous gothic pop rock song, leading us to believe the house of Ulver is stale and empty, but, once inside, the beating heart beneath the floor ignites the madness and renews all hope . Much like Shadows of the Sun, the remaining six songs on Wars of the Roses rely on breathless emptiness to achieve their haunting efficacy, a well-conceived mix of percussion, bowed guitar, strings, wind instruments, piano, electronics, and, in the case of “Providence,” a female vocalist (Siri Stranger). It remains, by large, a sleepy effort, but that’s not to say it’s boring, because Ulver’s ability to transcend mere ritualistic potency is mesmerizing. They finish it off with the 15:00 minute “Stone Angels,” whose lyrics are a text written by American poet Keith Waldrop and read by guitarist, and newest member of the band, Daniel O’Sullivan, a final statement on the band’s thematic vision, one that’s less concerned with mainstream malfeasance and more intent on doing what they’ve always done — divinely flexing their learned, classical, and philosophical muscles.
After having spent the last few years as one half of The Gutter Twins (with Mark Lanegan), Greg Dulli has returned to leading The Twilight Singers, his bread and butter since his old band, alternative masters The Afghan Whigs, disbanded in the late 90s. Dynamite Steps, the band’s fifth album, ends their longest run of years without a release (five) after a prolific run of four albums in six years at the start of the millennium. If anything has changed in those five years it’s the growth in Dulli’s standing as an American classic, as a revered and respected rock n’ roll icon, and in turn that has enriched the efforts of his Twilight collective, who deliver their darkest, most emotional album to date. Thick with Dulli’s gruff but evocative voice over top a sweeping soundscape that runs soulful, sexy, serious, and stellar, Dynamite Steps is indie noir of the highest order, a flickering flame of hope at the end of a long, dirty, hopeless tunnel. Every single one of the songs on this album breathe with a mesmerizing profundity and while its hard to pull out highlights, “Last Night in Town,” “On the Corner,” “Blackbird and the Fox” (featuring Ani DiFranco), “Never Seen No Devil,” and the title track ought to find room in Dulli’s ever growing catalog of brilliance, and will make you take to the city streets in the dead of night to look for meaning in its dimmest lights.
Earth Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I
Southern Lord
Ever since they returned from their nine year hiatus with Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method in 2005, Earth’s patented drone doom has shown significant trending toward a dark, apocalyptic, Americana sound; they’ve long since replaced the fuzz and feedback of earlier albums with clean, mournful rhythms of a dusty and desolate gothic Western landscape. Their latest, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I, follows the conceptual blueprint laid out by Hex, Hibernaculum, and The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, laying its soul bare, like an old man at the end of his days embracing death beautifully and without any fanfare. It pours (slowly, of course, like molasses) an hour’s worth of rich, hypnotic sustain — thanks in large part to the abundance of soft cello and bass — into five songs (best appreciated as a whole, as usual), punctuated perfectly by weary harmonics that you might swear are crying out to you. While not entirely memorable or new, this album is still good, and Earth’s main man, Dylan Carlson, continues to prove he’s a master craftsman, a man capable of mesmerizing and enlightening us, even when we’ve heard it all before. And yes, Earth fans, that I in the title means that II is on the way.
Listen to “Descent to the Zenith” from Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I!
Ulver
The Twilight Singers
Earth