ULVER & SUNN O))) : TERRESTRIALS

The first time i listened to this album really made a lasting impression on me. I was watching the tv series 'The Pacific' with all it's blood and guts - thinking of past lives as a soldier in numerous wars with swords swinging and guns ablazing......then the commercials came on to ruin my ficticious daydreaming. Buy something!.....and forget about the war! I got mad and frustrated - looked at the coffeetable in front of me, where this beautiful cover art seemed like it was smiling at me. Ahh to hell with it and on the stereo I threw it - after all I had about 7 minutes of wallpaper time to spend, so why not spin what, at the time, was the most anticipated release of the year for yours truly.

Well the 7 minutes came and went and by the time the granades had started to fly in a sea of bullits and young men with fear in their eyes, I still couldn't quite get myself to turn it off and return to the war. Instead I turned the volume way up and kept the tv on mute. Something magical happened. The slow almost oozing nature of the music complemented the images of humanity being trambled under foot. The first track 'Let There Be Light' felt like an ode to humanity. The eerie viola creeping and crawling on it's belly seemed to mimic the wounded American soldier slithering through the bloodstained grasses - just as the feedback of Sunn O)))s guitars very similarly interjected an enigmatic sense of fear into the music. By the time the trumpet emerged like a soft beam of light I felt bruised and old - like an old stone. That trumpet though saved me from the terror by breathing light into the piece. From these dark cauldrons of drones and grainy unsubstantial flutters there was suddenly music, by the flick of the switch, and then it grew exponentially in size and gusto culminating in this beautiful catharthic release with the drums rolling by like a series of rhythmic waves, or subdued thunder. The feel is raw and earthy like brown dirt, and it works wonders together with the incomprehensible nature of the surrounding instruments.

By this time I was very close to a mental breakdown or some kind of grim spiritual orgasm - either way I was seriously contemplating turning either the tv or music off.......but I didn't. The following track 'Western Horn' stopped me dead in my tracks with it's yearning trumpet cry. The battle up on the screen had stopped and grey smoke, broken bodies and a sense of detachment filled the screen as if to underline the horrific silence that always follows the bang. The music was perfect. It captured everything about the scene which can never be expressed in words.

Finishing off this journey, 'Eternal Return' acted like an epilogue to all this madness. The stoic yet lonesome voice of Kristoffer Rygg joins in for the first time, and it couldn't have waited for a more perfect moment than this, where frail hapsichord and those ominous and highly vibrant guitar noises of Sunn O))) really come to the fore. Bookends the album like a day of snow in late August.

This is not an easy album to get into by any stretch of the imagination. I gather I was lucky with my first encounter. I saw the record's 'intentions' instantly - and no it was probably not meant as a dramatic backdraft to a cinematic W.W.ll battle, but the feel of the thing - the stuff between the lines - the mental state you have to be in when approaching Terrestrials - that I got from day one no less.

I keep returning to this record - sometimes it's like witnessing an ancient sun ceremony from the feet of a Mayan pyramid, other times I go back to the war....but each and every time I listen to it I get an experience out of the norm. Terrestrials promises you something earthy just through it's title yet what it delivers zooms right out of the soil and tattooes itself in your head....at least it did in me.

Share this ULVER review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Guldbamsen
• Report this review (#1314519)
• Buy ULVER music online with PA partners
• Show all ULVER MP3/Stream
• Go to ULVER page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Ulver & Sunn O))) : Terrestrials page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for ULVER related discussions