Ulver, The Assassination of Julius Caesar (2017) A Review

Ulver, The Assassination of Julius Caesar (2017) A Review

By: Ghost Writer

I have been raving a lot about black metal as one of the greatest thing to happen to forward thinking music in decades, not because of black metal as a whole, but about what came after it, black metal was a perfect revolt against the status quo, plainly against music just like grindcore before it, and as indomitable as free jazz, the outstanding thing about black metal was its capacity to quickly implode and evolve, its detachment from traditional music giving it the perfect position to reinvent itself and to give it's musicians the broad vision to experiment in a reckless way, to rearrange almost completely the rules of the game and to rewire their brains, we have really progressive minded individuals within the genre like Varg Vikerness, Attila Csihar, Ihshan and Mortiis, and please add another important name to the list, that of Kristoffer Rygg, the leader of Norwegian musical evolution machine known as Ulver, and if you spent the last couple of years away from the extreme metal scene you might be still thinking that Ulver are a black metal, so if you casually end up listening to Ulver's newest recording, The Assassination of Julius Caesar you are inn for the biggest shock of your life as this madly mutating music entity has once again made a quantum leap in musical progress.

To describe The Assassination of Julius Caesar is a tough job, just as hard as trying to describe Ulver's sound, in opener Nemoralia we are confronted by a powerful electronic band with a heavy synth use, Nemoralia the intriguing name of the piece moves with an almost sensual cadence and Rygg's amazing vocals skills soaring high, yes, at this moment Ulver have become such an impressive electronic band that it might start to rival British revolution heroes Depeche Mode, Rygg's voice is perfectly suited for the dark and sexy groove, with his carefully treated and overdubbed vocals floating all over, while on Rolling Stone some stridency is allowed, swelling synthetic bass give us the deep and fantastic melody, a long but infecting intro with tension slowly growing, pieces of the Nine Inch Nails industrial pop sound can be detected, as the production by the great Youth is clearly felt all over the place, and the guitars of string wizard Stian Westerhus suddenly appears, touches of disco, dance music and even R&B vocals are big part of the impressive mix, as Ulver show here that they are the ultimate Darwinist band, easily changing, evolving and adapting wonderfully to the times, even by adding some krautrock and Pink Floyd like psychedelia to the piece for better effect.

So Falls the World distills lush and elegance, a magnificent piece of Avant Garde pop, yes pop, you can perfectly imagine this piece reaching the masses with its rich arrangements and pitch perfect performance by Rygg, with the dreamy atmosphere abruptly interrupted in the end by some New Order like electronic dance music deviation, the undoubtedly work of a genius, better carried than the too polished and too poppy Hesitation Marks by NIN, here the band is able to expand their sound in a boundless and fearless way that they can almost invade pop without specifically targeting it, going from this into the even more danceable Southern Gothic is no easy feat, but this is a work of a band than knows no limitation and no fear, a superb exercise of freedom and daring attitude, yes, it might be shocking at times, but nothing to deceive fans of perfectly crafted forward thinking music. 

Nearly at the end of the record comes the eerie Coming Home, featuring some out there percussion work that reminds me of the mighty Swans, whose main leader Michael Gira wouldn't be out of place in this recording, the song itself leans towards some Wagnerian heights and the results again are brilliant, adding some extra touch of Teutonic might to the tone of the piece which almost touches industrial music in a tangential way with its strong rhythm machines and it's heavy bass lines, closing a nearly perfect record by a band that brutally excels at the art of being different and making truly uncompromising music, not bad for a bunch of guys who started as a raw black metal band huh?