ULVER
Flowers Of Evil HOUSE OF MYTHOLOGY
Nordic shapeshifters serve up an album of futurist electro-noir.
Ulver passed some time ago into that elite pantheon of bands whose music can only really be described in reference to itself. They’ve become their own genre, with a defining feature being a restless, questing spirit of reinvention rather than a specific sonic signature.
From their origins in black metal, they’ve progressed through ambient, folk, industrial, psychedelia and electronica to arrive at a point where, in their 27th year of existence, they’re perhaps at their most accessible to a progressive audience. Building on The Assassination Of Julius Caesar from 2017, Flowers Of Evil draws on the synth-pop and futurist rock sounds of the 1980s without ever approaching pastiche. Instead, its songs are bracingly bereft of any hint of irony, and hang heavy with a clear-eyed Nordic melancholy.