Ulver — Nattens Madrigal — Aatte Hymne Til Ulven I Manden — written 1995, recorded 1996 (?), released 03/03/1997
Well, here we are. Natten’s Madrigal, the third and final entry into the so-called black metal trilogy. After this album Ulver would eventually stop making riffs at all, which has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. It is the reason they are one of the world’s most unpopular and hated bands in the present day. However, we still got one more BM record to go before we reach that point, so let’s delve into the madrigal that Natten made, shall we?
When I reviewed Kveldssanger last week, my closing considerations were that, and I quote, “It’s funny to think of Bergtatt as a sum of Kveldssanger’s folk and Nattens Madrigal’s black metal […] The black metal and occasional rough sounding production in Nattens works pretty well, even if it’s considetably less dynamic and epic”. I think that encapsulates what I think of Nattens pretty well: a repetitive but by no means unpleasant barrage of raw, gritty, very trebly riffs at a very fast tempo. OK, the treblyness can actually be pretty grating sometimes, but you grow used to it.
As illustrated by the dog in the cover art, who is clearly howling in agony over the fat dump he’s taking, the sound quality is absolutely horrible. That is due to the fact that the band members spent all of their recording budget on Armani suits, cocaine and a Corvette and thus had to record the whole thing on an 8-track in the middle of a forest, a story that is true and has been confirmed by all past and present band members. This bad sound has been framed as sort of a “fuck you” to the commercialization of BM.
How do I like Nattens, though? Dear reader, it’s with great pleasure that I announce that I, indeed, like this a lot. Of course, it’s never topping Bergtatt when it comes to originality, delicateness and narrative complexity — granted, it does beat Bergtatt in the “sounding like Darkthrone” front, which I don’t think is a bad thing at all. This scratches the same itch that pretty much makes me want to listen to BM at all: the textures, the brutality, how weird and unhinged it all sounds, et coetera. The riffs in here are evil and epic, the drumming is fast and aggressive, the few and far-between solos are adequate but not too flashy, and the vocals are ungodly and terrifying. I seriously can’t fathom how these dudes can do this and not immediately drop dead; I can barely imitate someone yelling without going into a coughing fit.
The tracks are all pretty samey, which is kinda par for the course when it comes to BM to be tbh, but they all have their little distinguishing details if you manage to get past the sonic barrage you’re assaulted with — I’m particularly amused by the strangely Deafheaven-ish, 2010s-indie-esque opening riffz in Hymn VI: Of Wolf and Passion. By the way, it owns that each song title is kind of about a wolf doing something or whatever; I can’t help but imagine this album being about a brave little wolf on a journey, even if it isn’t at all.
DOES IT PULVERIZE? H*ck yeah it does.
