Ulvdalir "Soul Void" CD

Other than coming across their name on the net I can’t say I’ve heard of these Russian lads before. And before I knew they were Russian, when I listened to the album for the first time, I was sure they hailed from Germany. There’s something very German about their sound, something I can’t really explain. However there’s no doubt some influences have been called forth from old Norwegian acts, yet I first thought of Svartsyn for comparison…
But I quickly revise my initial comparison to Svartsyn and bury myself deep within the German scene with Nordisk Velde, throwing in a dose of Taake just for the hell of it. However, all of a sudden a long, slow and oh-so-majestic and angst-ridden passage will take place, and my mind goes to Ondskapt. Ulvdalir has with "Soul void" created some raw shit, but it actually took me a few listens to fully appreciate it. I was a bit skeptical at first, and thought it was an ok album, but nothing more. But that’s the thing with writing reviews; you can’t write a decent one without really paying attention to the music, and giving it a lot of listens. And hence, I’ve discovered what a killer album this really is.
Despite my obvious initial confusion, and the wide spread of comparisons I’ve made, "Soul void" comes off flowing. The tracks are rather long (ranging from five to eleven minutes), which can be hard to pull off. But the melodic-sniffing riffage combined with the rather fast-forward drumming makes it, as a lot of diversity has been intertwined with slow agonized sections, just as some harsh-as-hell old school hails. It’s difficult to really label this with a certain subgenre of black metal, ‘cause it seems to take the best from each line of direction. And that’s where Ulvdalir stands out, as the end result is far from messy. They’ve taken all these different aspects of black metal and made it into a whole. And topped with the rough and powerful screams this is one hell of an album.

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