Ulver
Kveldssanger

This will not be a proper review, but rather a description of my experience and the sensations I felt while listening to this album, so it will be a highly subjective judgment. After all, the experience varies from person to person...

It was 1993. What would become one of the most protean minds in the entire Scandinavian metal scene (and beyond), Kristoffer "Garm" Rygg, founded, together with drummer Carl Michael Eide, the project Ulver, born as a black metal band heavily influenced by Norwegian folk. It is by following this path that Ulver released two demos, a split together with Myticum, and their first real debut album, Bergtatt, in 1995. However, Garm's creative mind wanted something else, something different. And so, the following year, with the strings of Haavard and the drums of Aiwaikiar, Ulver produced an unexpected album: they removed the black metal outbursts from Bergtatt's sound, leaving only the folk. With the electric instruments gone, only acoustic guitars, cellos, the drums (in a very small part), and Garm's baritone voice remained. Thus, Kveldssanger was born.

I'll be honest: this is not an album for everyone. Those expecting violent guitar outbursts and powerful drumming from a metal band (and especially from a black metal one) will most likely not appreciate this masterpiece (yes, for me it's a masterpiece), because the atmosphere enveloping this brief yet intense work is deeply melancholic and nostalgic. I say "nostalgic" for a reason, as Kveldssanger is a work strongly inspired not only by Norwegian folklore but also by Romanticism, and nostalgia, along with attention to nature, is the cornerstone of Romantic poetry. This is a piece to be listened to in the evening, in the dark, as the title itself suggests: Kvelds-sanger, "Evening Songs".

The album begins with a guitar arpeggio accompanied by the cello, to which Garm's voice is added, immediately casting the listener into the necessary mood to enjoy all 13 tracks: Østenfor Sol og Vestenfor Maane is the perfect beginning for an album of this type. The sublime notes immediately transport us into the Scandinavian woods, surrounded by animals that could attack us at any moment. We feel fear and anguish: we experience the Sublime, in the sense that philosopher Edmund Burke gives to this term. For him, the sublime is "whatever is fitted in any sort to excite ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror". And the wild, untainted nature into which we are projected by listening to Kveldssanger is precisely this, because, again using Burke's words, it "produces the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling".

Most of the songs that make up the tracklist are instrumental or, as in the case of A Capella (Sielens Sang) or Ord, feature only a choir, without music. And, in any case, they all feature, as already mentioned, a very melancholic mood, almost as if mourning a reality that no longer exists. The only exception is Halling, which has a more joyful momentum than the other tracks: a moment of respite before we dive back into an oppressive and nostalgic atmosphere with Utreise, the exodus (in Norwegian Bokmål, it literally means "journey -reise- out -ut-"). The end of this journey into unspoiled nature is approaching.

Kveldssanger should be listened to in complete silence, so as not to disturb the nature and atmospheres of the landscapes described by the beautiful notes of this album, which, for me, reaches its peak in Naturmystikk, the mystery of nature (or also the mysticism of nature): the title of this song demonstrates all the respect and attention that Ulver have towards nature and that they demand from the listener.

Ssssh...

I blinde gaar jeg
Redd meg, ikke
La natten føre meg
Bestandig.