CLIVAGES

I've had this album since not long after it was released. Near the end of 2009 I heard the good news that we would be getting a new Univers Zero album, so I started to keep watch for it to hit the virtual shelves. After owning it for around 10 months now, I'm still having trouble with writing a review for it. I've found that Univers Zero is a very hard band for me to review, because I'm not sure exactly the appropriate way to describe their music and how it affects me.

This was my second album from the band, ordered not more than a couple weeks after I bought their debut. After listening to that one, this one sounds quite different - for one thing, not every track is so dark and sinister as on the debut. Les Kobolds in particular surprised me...it sounds downright cheery to me! The mood doesn't stick around too long though. Warrior brings to mind the atmosphere and mood of the other Univers Zero albums I own, and does it in a pretty great way. We get a nice chugging rhythm on bass and some other strings, with Denis providing his usual interesting drumming and some woodwind soloing over top of everything, and of course we get some nice dissonant passages as well. All in all, this turns out to be a great track as well. I haven't heard many tracks from this band that weren't great, though.

Almost all of the tracks on this album are great. There is really only one track which I don't enjoy quite as much, though it's one of the short tracks (the shortest, actually) and doesn't disrupt the flow of the album at all in my opinion. I'm not even saying it's a bad track, in fact...just not at the same level of the rest of the album. Earth Screams is the culprit here...I wish they would have made it slightly less atmosphere heavy, slightly more music heavy, but I'll live either way, especially as it leads into one of my favorite tracks on the album, Soubresauts. It's another track that sounds lighter than much of Univers Zero's material to me, but it's a very well done track.

All in all, this album will not disappoint fans of chamber rock, and as far as that goes it's not a bad place to start either. So far, this is one of my favorite Univers Zero albums, but I have only heard four of them. Still, the debut is the only one I prefer to this right now, and both are incredible. Just don't expect all doom and gloom from this one - the band has changed a bit since the days of the debut. This is definitely one of my favorite albums from this year.