PHOSPHORESCENT DREAMS

A new Univers Zero album is always worth paying attention to, and in this case the revived band have won me over in a way which The Hard Quest didn't manage to accomplish. Here, the clarinet and other woodwind instruments of Kurt Budé add a softer side to the band's music which doesn't really fit most listeners' impressions of Univers Zero as a terrifying musical chamber of horrors, but it actually suits the more contemplative direction the band steer the music in here. Not out to scare for the sake of spookiness here, the group even (to my ears) draw on the gentler side of the Canterbury sound in spots to create a better balance between heavy, foreboding material and more charming stuff.