Ulver
Bergtatt

Garm is a genius and that's beyond question. An artist capable of transitioning over his career from the black-folk of Bergtatt to the pure folk of Kveldssanger and the pure black of Nattens Madrigal, then moving towards the shores of electronics, ambient, and pure sound experimentation, even venturing into soundtracks for short films, is not a mere artist, he's a genius; indeed.

The story of Ulver began in the distant 1994 with this Bergtatt, which in my opinion is perhaps one of the best albums the Norwegian black wave has ever brought to light. For a point of comparison, we can mention the immense Stormblast by fellow Norwegians Dimmu Borgir, where the keyboards, which were the “extra” element of that masterpiece, the incomparable Stien Aarstad’s contribution, are replaced by Garm’s vocal performance.
His clean singing, always supported by a second overdub also by Garm, attempting to bring his singing close to a sort of Gregorian chant, is the real strength of the album, evocative and epic. This can be heard well in the first track Troldskog Faren Vid, all based on a mid-tempo in line with those already appreciated in Stormblast and on Garm’s performance.
From the second track onwards, we begin to glimpse those furious attacks of pure black metal, of which Ulver have (been) great masters, as they later demonstrated in Nattens Madrigal. These flashes of black violence prove to be very useful for the album as they break the intended monotony of Garm’s chants, transferring his evocative vocal lines into guitar riffing that’s precise to the limit of surgical in its tremolo picking. Furthermore, those who had the chance to listen to Stormblast will remember how the bass blended superbly with the guitar lines, becoming one of the main features of that CD and especially an element of innovation in a very low-fi genre like black metal, where the bass is almost always covered by a deluge of buzzing sounds and the paper mache that covers the drum skins.
Well, in Bergtatt, the same magic occurs, the bass is often the real protagonist of the scene, never too intrusive but not hidden either, suspended above all the other instruments, it delights us with its sweet, full-bodied, and metallic sound.

An album highly recommended to those who were vainly searching for a masterpiece to dethrone Stormblast from their CD player.