SHADOWS OF THE SUN

One thing that people who have listened to Ulver throughout the years know is that you cannot listen to any one of their albums and say "I know what this band sounds like" because their sound changes with each album. You never know whether to expect black metal or ambience. But these guys can do every single one of the genre's right. Such is the case with this album which is very minimalistic sounding. The band proves here that music does not have to be loud to blow you away. They even do a cover of Black Sabbath's "Solitude" and make it even more evil sounding than Black Sabbath did. True, the music is evil sounding, but its also beautiful. And it definately is not main stream. The use of dissonance is amazing, and no matter what type of music Ulver is dabbling in at the time, the one consistant thing is their masterful use of dissonance. Even though I don't consider this their best album (that title goes to both "Perdition City" and "Blood Inside" in my opinion), it is still worth adding to your prog collection and is still close to masterpiece material. The one thing that keeps me from giving this album masterpiece status is that their just isn't as much experimentation here and you get a lot of the same timbre throughout each track, yet the form changes throughout which makes every track interesting anyway. Don't let this deter you from checking this album out though, it is definately worth listening to. If you like it dark and sinister, then you should get this. But even if you don't, you should still try out a variety of songs from this band and hear just how professional they can be at anything they try.