ULVER: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (ALTERNATIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

What a funny musical chameleon Ulver is! Beginning its career with a black metal with folk touches, the band tries in turn industrial metal, hip hop, electro, post rock, art rock, psychedelic rock, contemporary music tinged with classical, avant-garde improvisations and finally synthpop. All this in 11 albums and a few EPs, it's enough to make you dizzy.

In November 2017, Ulver shared a three-track EP on streaming platforms, the first two tracks coming from unused materials taken from previous album "The Assassination of Julius Caesar", soundtrack of the Canadian film "Riverhead", the third being a cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'The Power of Love'. Called "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi", this one has been released at the end of 2018 on vinyl, the three original titles being completed with 4 live recordings from "The Assassination of Julius Caesar".

The new wave influence that transpired from the previous opus does not deny itself on this EP very well produced elsewhere. To say the truth, to wedge this record between a Depeche Mode album and an Ultravox one would have nothing iconoclastic, quite the contrary. Far from the strange and unclassifiable music they had accustomed us to on their past escapades, the Norwegians offers something almost dancing and in any case very direct, interpreting simple songs to which Kristoffer Rygg's voice (magnificent, need I remind you) gives this melancholic and romantic hue, evoking in turn Midge Ure and Roland Orzabal.

If the first three tracks plunge us back into the 80's and their synthesizers, but without anything kitsch or terribly retro, the four live tracks, while keeping the atmosphere of this decade, seem wilder, dominated by a drum set with heavy and heady bearings, and keyboard layers more tragic and gothic. Only 'Rolling Stone' suggests that Ulver is not fully ripe for the dancefloor, its long, cacophonous and disturbing finale reminds the listener that he is listening to a band that no classification can lock up.

Fans of Ultravox, Tears For Fears, Talk Talk, Depeche Mode... and Ulver, rush on this EP that will surely plunge you into the nostalgia of a decade sometimes unfairly decried. - Official website

ULVER

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI

AUTRE LABEL

ALTERNATIVE ROCK