Year Of Metal #85: Ulver – Bergtatt – Et Eeventyr i 5 capitler
I think this is the final foray into Norwegian black metal, and it’s by far the best - indeed, to put my cards on the table from the off, it’s maybe the best album I’ve been introduced to during this project. To make matters more interesting still, in 1994, Ulver are but a gang of teenagers about to embark on an incredibly diverse musical journey. The black folk metal of Bergtatt sounds like nothing I’ve heard before and, like any good natural horror, like something timeless and elemental.
Like on the Bell Witch record, these guys have gone for high concept (the full title translating to “Spellbound – A Fairy Tale in 5 Chapters”), and like Bell Witch, if it didn’t work so well, I’d probably baulk at the idea. But all of this does sound like the score to a terrible twisted fable or a dream turned nightmare. Ulver can summon that malevolence and unease without resorting to much in the way of anger and aggression - indeed much of this record is downright beautiful. Always, though, there’s something lurking in the shadows, something that isn’t quite right.
I’m hooked from the moment opener “I Troldskog faren vild” kicks in. I’ve taken issue plenty of times before with overplayed drums in metal, but here the intensity of the percussion is superb. It underscores the prettiness of the shoegazey guitars; there isn’t a sixteenth note through which light can shine. It’s breathless, like a forest closing in on you. The song is lively and energetic, but there’s no room for fancy business like structure. It’s just a relentless push forward, Kristoffer Rygg’s vocals cold and detached. When the final two minutes give way to a galloping guitar line, it’s like the implied menace has become explicit - there’s blood in the air.
For me the only giveaway that we’re dealing with inexperienced musicians here is the occasional gracelessness of the transitions from light to dark, but I think this is effective in its own way (and indeed is likely entirely deliberate). “Soelen gaaer bag Aase need” opens with delicately plucked guitars and bucolic flutes before dropping without warning into the album’s heaviest stuff. Here we get the death screams and a deluge of noise, while something sweeter tries to emerge from the murk. The song then oscillates between these two modes, peace and pandemonium, as though in battle with itself.
I’m given to understand that, after three albums of this kind of gear, Ulver would go on to make music in every genre under the sun. While Bergtatt is in the black metal mould, there’s a sense of this restlessness across the album. The record has just five songs, but not one of them can sit still. They’re forever transforming, evolving, dropping what they’re doing and following a different path, moving to the call of nature. Finale “Bergtatt - Ind i Fjeldkamrene” gives us the album’s two extremes, with Rygg’s gasped, airless vocals at their most desperate and pained, and the moments of serenity at their most tranquil and beautiful. The passages of classical guitar are gorgeous, even if we know deep down that the next delve into darkness can’t be too far away. But Ulver are good enough to leave us on a note of hope, a cheery major arpeggio as we emerge into the light.
This is just such good stuff, then. Everything is brilliantly considered and put together, so many ideas crammed into a 34 minute package. It’s evocative and singular and it all sounds incredible; it’s wild that this lot aren’t even into their twenties.
