Articles
2007 Top 10s and 20s
2007 Artist Picks
Meissner Interview

Albums
7 Hertz
Aarktica
Alka
Axiotronic
Dale Berning
BJNilsen & Z'ev
John Callaghan
Cousin Lou
Dif:use
Disrupt
Domink Eulberg
Donna Regina
Eedl
Erstlaub
FF Burning & BC Motel
Fibla
Figurines
Fond Of Tigers
Freescha
Brian Grainger
Inhabitants
Klimek
Liquid Stranger
Low Res
Mlle Caro & Franck Garcia
Northern
Adam Pacione
Part Timer
Steve Peters
Phreakon
Pig & Dan
Pinch
Rechenzentrum
Sebastien Roux
Sciajno & English
The Seasons
Slow Dancing Society
Steinbrüchel
Talvekoidik
Translations
Ulver
Uusitalo
Tony Wilson 6Tet
Wilson/Lee/Bentley

Compilations/Mixes
15 Exitos Grandes
Steve Lawler
Pole
Sven Väth

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Ada
Alland Byallo
Formication
Tim Hecker
Hybernation
Karoshi Bros
Lilienweiss
Move D
Tor Lundvall
Shreber Harber Mole FW
Sun Electric
Amon Tobin
Gez Varley

Ulver: Shadows of the Sun
Jester/The End Records

Norwegian band Ulver (“Wolves”) carries on the prog tradition with Shadows of the Sun. Though such a statement may induce fear in some, there's no need to fear: we're not talking twenty-minute plunges into topographic oceans but rather an evocative forty-minute suite of nine songs. Kristoffer Rygg, Tore Ylwizaker, and Jørn H. Sværen generally rein in the pretension on the group's seventh full-length album, exceptions being the rather heavy-handed title song, the bombastic “Let the Children Go,” and overblown lyric writing that centers on themes of loss and disillusion (“The sun is far away / It goes in circles / Someone dies / Someone lives / In pain”).

Rygg drapes his deep whisper across a stirring bed of strings and theremin in the mournful opener “Eos,” after which sleigh bells, a wordless choir, and Mathias Eick's trumpet animate “All the Love;” his horn also helps transform Black Sabbath's “Solitude” (from 1971's Master of Reality ) into a full-fledged Ulver tune. The album is enriched by the contributions of more guests, including Oslo Session String Quartet member Hans Josef Groh, whose cello groans merge with dark strings and eerie sound effects in “Like Music,” and Fennesz, whose “supplemental shimmer” nicely enhances the elegant piano-and-strings balladry of “Vigil.” The warble of Pamelia Kurstin's theremin reappears in the gloomy nightscape “Funebre” before the string-drenched “What Happened?” brings the album to a ponderous close. Listeners new to the band might be surprised to learn that Ulver, which comes across as a dark and restrained third cousin to Coil on this outing, was a black metal band in a previous incarnation. Shadows of the Sun indicates that Ulver is, at least for now, more an art-rock chamber group than anything else.

January 2008