Ulvik – Last Rites | Dire Omens (Mountainous 19th Century Blackened Folk Doom)
This one came in late, but there’s time, and I had to make time just glancing the cover. There’s a sense of history here, and sense of noticing details and remembering things forgotten. What appears a simple image of a rotting dog face, or something like that, is enclosed in a border only the initiated will realize is from a daguerreotype or an ambrotype, old forms of photography on metal and glass a specific niche audience will recognize. These guys know stuff, I said to myself. In addition to knowing forgotten memories, they know music, they know metal, doom, folk, that’s all here, fashioned together in leather-bound binding, gilt lettering revealing the tome as Last Rites | Dire Omens.
I feel bad I ripped on Canadian black metal, but to be fair the last time I remembering to listening to a promo from there of said genre it was something with geese squawking over it. Lol, lame. Ulvik, however, are a supernatural presence rather than a band. Last Rites | Dire Omens mixes a number of genres together, successfully, but I’m not going to bother commenting on them although I already did above (damn it). Ulvik, most importantly, are masters of creating emotion through sound. The riffs are dense, and big, the acoustics ringing like bells tolled for a funeral, the vocals mix spoken word from a tragic maiden with shrieking ghosts, and more melancholy sections that sound like a dying town in the 19th century coming to terms with industry. There’s a feeling of things antiquated here, of crumbling edifices, tragedies that no longer resonate, and rural, pastoral melancholy. I felt so many things listening to Last Rites | Dire Omens I remembered I was still human, both regretting and enjoying the thought at the same time. This is a true masterwork and one of the few times I gave a release a perfect score.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Ulvik – Last Rites / Dire Omens
Avantgarde Music
Cover Art: Band
5 / 5
