{"id":6222,"date":"2012-05-28T00:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T00:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=6222"},"modified":"2013-06-01T12:52:26","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T12:52:26","slug":"album-review-ulver-childhoods-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-ulver-childhoods-end\/","title":{"rendered":"ULVER – Childhood\u2019s End (2012) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ULVER
Childhood\u2019s End<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nKscope Music (2012)<\/span>
Rating: 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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If ever there was a band that did whatever it wanted, all the time, it\u2019s Ulver. The Norwegian band started out building a solid fanbase in the extreme metal market, but quickly proved they had a lot more to offer than all things aggressive.<\/p>\n

The band has become well known for its musically intricate and deeply artistic works over the years, but on Childhood\u2019s End<\/em> the band take a break from the experimentation and boundary crossing. The album features Ulver\u2019s take on 16 psychedelic-era cover songs, many of them so obscure even lifelong music diehards (like myself) will be hard pressed to know or remember them all. <\/p>\n

As with any psychedelic music, the sound here is often dark and mostly jangly. Ulver have done a really excellent job of putting together songs that actually flow well though. The album as a whole has a very fluid feel to it and it\u2019s not hard to imagine the band locked in a dark room at 3:00am drinking adult beverages and partaking in things that are illegal in my country, while playing around with atmospheric guitar tones and making their voices echo. <\/p>\n

The songs chosen here are so unique that it\u2019s way too complicated to really review them. Instead, I\u2019ll tell you what I felt stood out here. \u2018I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)\u2019 is a certain highlight and probably one of the better known songs on the album as it\u2019s an Electric Prunes cover. The same goes for Jefferson Airplane\u2019s \u2018Today\u2019.<\/p>\n

Another standout for me is The Pretty Things\u2019 \u2018Bracelets Of Fingers\u2019, which is one of the oddest songs I have heard and I would be willing to bet that it inspired a young Alice Cooper in many ways. \u2018Magic Hollow\u2019, originally done by The Beau Brummels, is a cross between Renaissance and Pink Floyd. It has a certain wild beauty to it but also a serious undertone that shifts your mind away from fairies and maidens faire.<\/p>\n

\u2018Can You Travel In The Dark Alone\u2019 is another highlight, boasting a brighter sound and a semi-anthemic vocal that almost makes you want to sing along. It\u2019s a cover of a Gandalf tune, but I could totally accept it as an overtly eccentric Ulver original. <\/p>\n

Much like the The Lemonheads covers album (2009\u2019s Varshons<\/em>), the strength here is that very few people will know the majority of these songs. In that sense, it\u2019s really easy to accept it as Ulver because the original isn\u2019t milling around in the back of your head while they are playing their rendition. Overall, I really enjoyed this album and it\u2019s nice to have an Ulver album that isn\u2019t so artistically heavy and serious. The band almost sound like they are having fun on Childhood\u2019s End<\/em> and it\u2019s a refreshing change of pace. <\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ULVERChildhood\u2019s End Kscope Music (2012)Rating: 6.5\/10 If ever there was a band that did whatever it wanted, all the time, it\u2019s Ulver. The Norwegian band started out building a solid fanbase in the extreme metal market, but quickly proved they had a lot more to offer than all things aggressive. The band has become well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,309],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-ulver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6222"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11877,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6222\/revisions\/11877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}