Ulver - Nattens Madrigal-Aatte Hymne til Ulven i Manden (1997)

After releasing the brilliant, ‘Bergtatt’ in 1995 and following it up with the stunning acoustic folk masterpiece that is, ‘Kveldssanger’ a year later, Ulver continued on their black metal path and completed their three part trilogy with, ‘Nattens Madrigal-Aatte Hymne til Ulven i Manden' in 1997.

In terms of rawness, necroness and possibly trueness Ulver pretty much outdid everyone with this one. The production for Nattens Madrigal is anything but clear, in fact it comes fairly close to Darkthrone’s, ‘Transilvanian Hunger’ although the overall volume is considerably louder just to make the ride all the more rough. The album is all treble, feedback, reverb, buzzing chainsaw sounding guitars and barely any signs of a bass guitar, anywhere. As for the actual music Ulver went for a mostly brutal raw black metal sound and the only traces of anything folk related appear as a short acoustic interlude in the middle of the first song. Garm also forsake the use of his charming clean vocals for only his extreme black metal voice. While a lot of people overlook this album, it really is a striking release of speedy black metal with very hate filled purposes. If you can get past the scorching fast drumming, wicked vocals and buzzing guitars you’ll actual discover a great black metal release right here.

Unfortunately for many this is the last Ulver release they'll spin, sighting reasons as lame as that Ulver 'Sold Out,' 'Went Techno' or 'Or just plain suck' after this point in their history. This is, of course, all very much in the spite of the fact that Ulver has put out a very rich, diverse and challenging discography since these early days, but eccentrics are not for everyone.

There's also some strange rumors around this album, such as that Ulver had recorded the whole thing in a forest and that they had also taken all the money that Century Media had given them to record the thing and spent it on a new car and suits, which are both seen in the booklet of, 'Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.' There's also the tale that Century Media was very disappointed with this release after hearing it and almost threatened to not release it. Whether or not that’s true, I do not know, but I’m sure when signing they were expecting something similar to Bergtatt.

In the end, 'Nattens Madrigal-Aatte Hymne til Ulven i Manden' is surely one of the most vicious black metal recordings released in the 90's and is most certainly appreciated by people that listen to entirely to much black metal music. Personally I think its the weakest link within their trilogy and that they have gone on to release some pretty freakin' awesome tunes since these days, but when I'm in the mood for pure chaotic true black metal records I'm always grabbing at this one again.