Member:
Pnoom
Date:
9/22/2007
Ah, what might have been…
The level of promise shown on Ulver’s Perdition City is absolutely through the roof. They play an engaging mix of electronic music that’s been fused with delicate piano melodies, searing sax, and moving vocals. For five songs, Ulver exploit this to its utmost potential, and then… they keel over. I don’t know why, but they do, and in doing so they brought down what could have… no, what should have been a masterpiece. Don’t get me wrong, I like this album very much, but those two songs (one weak, one appalling) really ruin the whole mood (and skipping them disrupts the flow of the album).
But first, lets focus on the good things. Ulver is a chameleon band; they change styles on every album, or so it seems. In their career, they’ve released a black/folk metal album, a pure Norse folk album, and a black metal album, only to pull an about face into the land of industrial explorations. From that album (Themes From William Blake’s…) onward, they have been developing that style while still remaining all over the map. On Perdition City, Ulver are closer to pure electronic than any other album (though they’re still far from limiting themselves solely to one genre). Most of the songs are driven by an engaging beat (or perhaps a shifting parade of beats). On top of this, however, you will hear haunting piano and sax (as I mentioned before). In fact, many of the songs have extended sections where just the piano dominates (with no beats whatsoever). Ulver are clearly not afraid to experiment, and it works.
It works, that is, until we read the song “We Are the Dead,” a pointless spoken word track with semi-painful lyrics (the lyrics on this album are never truly good, but here they fall even further below. I could forgive the album this minor slip-up, however, if it weren’t for the next song, “Dead City Centres.” The music is actually engaging, but it is fatally marred by the mind-bogglingly terrible lyrics. I cannot listen to this song because of these lyrics. The album picks up from there; both “Catalept” and “Nowhere/Catastrophe” are good songs (though not as good as the first five), but by now, the damage has been done.
Despite those two songs, however, I would still recommend the album. The first five songs, particularly “Porn Piece or the Scars of Cold Kisses” and “Hallways of Always,” are some of the best modern music I’ve heard. I’d recommend this album to any adventurous modern listeners (or you could go for Blood Inside, a slightly better album is a similar vein), but keep in mind that for all the good on this album, there is corresponding bad. I like itt; you may, too. A good album that should’ve been essential, but simply is not. That’s Perdition City in a nutshell.
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