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TheLoneForest
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:16 pm
Posts: 760
Location: Quebec
PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 5:47 pm 
 

https://metalinjection.net/latest-news/ ... 5XctmH_B3E

Man this sucks

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Bingewolf
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2017 9:59 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 6:37 pm 
 

Honestly, not the most surprising thing but yes it does suck... They were incredible in New York and I'm sure the fans would greatly enjoy the show.

However, it is very expensive to come to the US and do a tour of their level when they haven't been steadily playing here, have changed their sound a lot over the years, etc. For example, when the US shows got announced, there were tons of questions about whether they'd play black metal despite having left the genre long ago. And that also represents that your average metalhead may not have heard about them in ages (or have heard about those shows). I went to the NYC show and had no idea they were planning to tour, for instance.

Tough break but glad to see a band just own it!

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Wilytank
Not a Flying Toy

Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:21 am
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Location: 717
PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 7:11 pm 
 

Curious. You’d think people living along the hipster coastline in the Northwest would be all over Ulver’s current iteration.
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cultofkraken
Veteran

Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2005 1:18 am
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 7:24 pm 
 

Fuck I didn’t know they were coming to Van. I would have bought tickets. Oh well guess it’s good I didn’t.
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FLIPPITYFLOOP
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 9:09 pm
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Location: CHRAWNA, Canada
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 12:03 am 
 

Found another article that's worth reading - https://yourlastrites.com/2019/03/26/ul ... vVQxgG3a8s

As much as I love all of Ulver's material, this article is pretty spot on. Every time I hear Ulver mentioned, it's from the perspective of "the former black metal band" - I discovered them the same way. It's obviously not always the case in Europe.

From seeing the comments on their Facebook post too, apparently they were planning on doing JUST the Julius Caeser album and companion EP, which - as good as that material is - would have been frustrating. I mean, if Ulver were playing Toronto I'd buy my ticket no matter what, and I'm not going to be delusional and think they'll do a "Trilogie" set, especially when only one guy from that era is still with the band (can Kris even still scream these days?), but is it really too much to ask for them to spread the setlist out a LITTLE bit?

It reminds me of when Nile finally made it into Canada in 2013 - they were touring for At The Gates Of Sethu, but they knew that a Canadian show was LONG overdue so they made a huge set that spanned their whole career. They still had some new songs of course but still "made up" so to speak and put on one of the best death metal shows I've ever seen.



Anyways it's like, I get that you put out a new album, that you like your random improv jams, and that obscure 60's music makes you poke a hole through your trousers, but your North American fans have been waiting a LONG time, and what you've got in store for them isn't as appealing as you might think it is.

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Chaosmonger
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Apr 29, 2006 5:59 pm
Posts: 1451
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 12:17 am 
 

^Eh they've done TWO friggin' metal albums out of...a lot now. It's so far away from who they are now (though not completely) that they shouldn't be expected to placate people that haven't kept up. I'm surprised they don't have enough fans of the later stuff though. A band like SunnO))) seems to be doing fine but Ulver can't draw?

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Gravetemplar
Metal freak

Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:08 am
Posts: 4652
Location: Antarctica
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 2:22 am 
 

They don't seem to like playing shows and ask for a ton of money. I'm not surprised they cancelled to be honest.

Expecting them to play black metal songs is dumb though.


Last edited by Gravetemplar on Thu May 09, 2019 3:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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matras
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:01 am
Posts: 1222
Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 2:48 am 
 

Ulver post 2000 > Ulver pre 2000

Seriously.

And wishing/thinking that they should play anything from before Perdition City is just delusional.

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~Guest 285196
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 7:11 pm
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 3:06 am 
 

That really sucks. Their shows are always quite impressive, visually as well as musically. I've heard that many European bands have a bit of a struggle when it comes to touring across the Atlantic, and Ulver is not a huge band by most standards.

And yes, expecting them to do black metal songs is ridiculous. They wrote Nattens Madrigan in 1995, which is what 24 years ago?

I'm a metalhead, so I don't know if they are promoted in other music scenes at all, but the Julius Cæsar album was really excellent, and I can see it having mainstream success if promoted correctly.

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Prairieshadow
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:01 am
Posts: 464
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 4:21 am 
 

FLIPPITYFLOOP wrote:
Found another article that's worth reading - https://yourlastrites.com/2019/03/26/ul ... vVQxgG3a8s

As much as I love all of Ulver's material, this article is pretty spot on. Every time I hear Ulver mentioned, it's from the perspective of "the former black metal band" - I discovered them the same way. It's obviously not always the case in Europe.

From seeing the comments on their Facebook post too, apparently they were planning on doing JUST the Julius Caeser album and companion EP, which - as good as that material is - would have been frustrating. I mean, if Ulver were playing Toronto I'd buy my ticket no matter what, and I'm not going to be delusional and think they'll do a "Trilogie" set, especially when only one guy from that era is still with the band (can Kris even still scream these days?), but is it really too much to ask for them to spread the setlist out a LITTLE bit?

It reminds me of when Nile finally made it into Canada in 2013 - they were touring for At The Gates Of Sethu, but they knew that a Canadian show was LONG overdue so they made a huge set that spanned their whole career. They still had some new songs of course but still "made up" so to speak and put on one of the best death metal shows I've ever seen.



Anyways it's like, I get that you put out a new album, that you like your random improv jams, and that obscure 60's music makes you poke a hole through your trousers, but your North American fans have been waiting a LONG time, and what you've got in store for them isn't as appealing as you might think it is.

Couldn't agree with this more.

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Gravetemplar
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 5:10 am 
 

I don't think that article is any good and it misses the point completely. Ulver are an underground band that plays electronic/experimental music for metalheads. They will never be a mainstream act and when they play Europe they face the same problems. Last time they played here it was like 30€ for just 50 minutes of music and no opening band. The attendance was low (no more than 100 people in a 500 venue if I'm correct).

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~Guest 334273
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 6:53 am 
 

I can confirm... They never really broke beyond the metalhead/ex-metalhead crowd. I saw them in a amazing venue (inside the La Masone labyrinth) and the show while gorgeous was far from packed

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BasqueStorm
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:18 am 
 

Morn Of Solace wrote:
I can confirm... They never really broke beyond the metalhead/ex-metalhead crowd. I saw them in a amazing venue (inside the La Masone labyrinth) and the show while gorgeous was far from packed

:beer:

I have seen them in festivals and it's a show for the open minded. :scratch:

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schizoid
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:35 am
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Location: New Zealand
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:28 am 
 

Morn Of Solace wrote:
I can confirm... They never really broke beyond the metalhead/ex-metalhead crowd. I saw them in a amazing venue (inside the La Masone labyrinth) and the show while gorgeous was far from packed


I suspected this. They seem to be determined to distance themselves from their metal past, even though that's where basically their entire audience comes from.
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Bingewolf
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:33 am 
 

I would say the same for the NYC shows. The majority of that crowd was metalheads.

Ulver never made it to “hipster” blogs so I assume their fans are still based in the metal world and none of us even knew they were touring (for the most part).

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CrippledLucifer
Metalhead

Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 5:08 am
Posts: 810
Location: Denmark
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:49 am 
 

schizoid wrote:
Morn Of Solace wrote:
I can confirm... They never really broke beyond the metalhead/ex-metalhead crowd. I saw them in a amazing venue (inside the La Masone labyrinth) and the show while gorgeous was far from packed


I suspected this. They seem to be determined to distance themselves from their metal past, even though that's where basically their entire audience comes from.


I dunno, I would not say they have actively tried to distance themselves from their metalhead fanbase, at least not beyond obviously having given up playing metal altogether for like two decades now. But they have played metal-adjacent festivals like Roadburn time and again in the past few years, and they haven't let the early black metal stuff to be out of print either, they even did that luxury box-set with the trilogy records and the demos a couple years ago. I'd guess they are well aware what their current fanbase is, and I think it's a flawed argument that since most of their crowd are metalheads then they are underappreciated in the US or whatever as that article a few posts ago seemed to believe. I think most of the people who like Ulver like both the old stuff and the electronic records, perhaps not equally but surely enough.
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schizoid
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Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:35 am
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:55 am 
 

CrippledLucifer wrote:
schizoid wrote:
Morn Of Solace wrote:
I can confirm... They never really broke beyond the metalhead/ex-metalhead crowd. I saw them in a amazing venue (inside the La Masone labyrinth) and the show while gorgeous was far from packed


I suspected this. They seem to be determined to distance themselves from their metal past, even though that's where basically their entire audience comes from.


I dunno, I would not say they have actively tried to distance themselves from their metalhead fanbase, at least not beyond obviously having given up playing metal altogether for like two decades now. But they have played metal-adjacent festivals like Roadburn time and again in the past few years, and they haven't let the early black metal stuff to be out of print either, they even did that luxury box-set with the trilogy records and the demos a couple years ago. I'd guess they are well aware what their current fanbase is, and I think it's a flawed argument that since most of their crowd are metalheads then they are underappreciated in the US or whatever as that article a few posts ago seemed to believe. I think most of the people who like Ulver like both the old stuff and the electronic records, perhaps not equally but surely enough.


Thing is, they have dabbled in more genres than just electronic, and most of it is pretty average. To be expected to be a fan on brand name alone is a bit presumptuous, especially when its predicated on your Black Metal lineage (which was long abandoned).

For the record, personally I like Bergtatt. Perdition City is a genuinely great electronica album, about half of Blood Inside is good. Outside of that, it's mostly just "eh?".
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CrippledLucifer
Metalhead

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Location: Denmark
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 9:29 am 
 

schizoid wrote:
Thing is, they have dabbled in more genres than just electronic, and most of it is pretty average. To be expected to be a fan on brand name alone is a bit presumptuous, especially when its predicated on your Black Metal lineage (which was long abandoned).

For the record, personally I like Bergtatt. Perdition City is a genuinely great electronica album, about half of Blood Inside is good. Outside of that, it's mostly just "eh?".


I personally like a bigger chunk of their discography but sure, I don't think anyone is expected to like everything they have done based on name alone. That was not really the point of my previous post, though.
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narsilianshard
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 11:22 am 
 

Shame, but I'm not surprised. They're just not the sort of band that should expect to sell out 2,000 person theaters. Seems like those NYC shows got to their heads; a one-off, first-time playing in the country's biggest city is very different than a west coast tour.
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blackmantram
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 11:50 am 
 

Not trying to be a dick here, but that's why it's a good idea to use a different name if you're a recognized black metal band with three releases considered staples of the genre which one day decided to depart to something completely different. You will probably end up being referred to as "that former black metal band" no matter how good your latter stuff is. That said, I really feel bad for these guys because I genuinely consider them one of the best acts in music nowadays.

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Gravetemplar
Metal freak

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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 12:07 pm 
 

blackmantram wrote:
Not trying to be a dick here, but that's why it's a good idea to use a different name if you're a recognized black metal band with three releases considered staples of the genre which one day decided to depart to something completely different. You will probably end up being referred to as "that former black metal band" no matter how good your latter stuff is. That said, I really feel bad for these guys because I genuinely consider them one of the best acts in music nowadays.

The opposite could be said too: if they had changed their name they would be even more unknown and obscure. Guess we will never know.

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~Guest 220079
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Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:39 am
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 12:29 pm 
 

That's a shame. This might have been the only bite of apple folks get aside from seeing them in Yerp, and this would've been a requisite post in that gigs-you-regret-you-missed or whatever it's called had they been scheduled to be in Chicago. However, I understand them canceling especially if there's no guarantee they're going to break even on $$$. For most folks decisions are processed through the lens of disposable income/budget and unfortunately Ulver/audience parted ways.

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Chaosmonger
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Apr 29, 2006 5:59 pm
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 12:50 pm 
 

I don’t think they needed to change their name. As different as they get in form, there’s still something distinctly Ulver about them. Maybe getting Southern Lord to distribute their stuff statewide would help.

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Larval Divination
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Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2017 1:37 am
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 1:52 pm 
 

Eh. Who would want to pay to see them if they completely abandoned their relevant material. (i.e, Bergtatt and Nattens Madrigal). Go see current Samael if you want to witness disappointment of the electronic variety.

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Acrobat
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 3:12 pm 
 

Ulver cancel career due to lack of interest...
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Ace_Rimmer
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 3:49 pm 
 

Weren't they disdainful of their metal fans and era?

Though I read that in an interview with them a long time ago.

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Prairieshadow
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:01 am
Posts: 464
PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 5:52 pm 
 

Ace_Rimmer wrote:
Weren't they disdainful of their metal fans and era?

Though I read that in an interview with them a long time ago.

Yeah they certainly have come across that way in some interviews I've seen.

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Chaosmonger
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 6:10 pm 
 

Larval Divination wrote:
Eh. Who would want to pay to see them if they completely abandoned their relevant material. (i.e, Bergtatt and Nattens Madrigal). Go see current Samael if you want to witness disappointment of the electronic variety.



They've done good stuff after, you just haven't kept up.

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HeavenDuff
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 6:40 pm 
 

FLIPPITYFLOOP wrote:
Found another article that's worth reading - https://yourlastrites.com/2019/03/26/ul ... vVQxgG3a8s

As much as I love all of Ulver's material, this article is pretty spot on. Every time I hear Ulver mentioned, it's from the perspective of "the former black metal band" - I discovered them the same way. It's obviously not always the case in Europe.


I feel that this article is as far as spot on as one can be. Why assume that the metalheads there were not enjoying themselves? Why assume that people who were not dancing were not enjoying themselves? (I love Ulver's latest records and woud most likely not dance to them live, or maybe groove a little, but not dance). Why assume that anyone going to see them live would expect them to play Trilogy content? If anything, you should assume that everybody knows they don't play their bm material anymore. The author of the article even mentions how they've not recorded anything metal since before 1998. That's 21 years ago. We are in the Internet age. Nobody who knows them enough to see them live wouldn't know that they play nothing from their first three records. Or if they are, they would be a very small minority. And no, people don't massively go to shows to pay hommage to a band for music they don't play live anymore. If half the crowd were metalheads... it's the wildest assumption you can make to presume they'd be there to pay hommage to Garm and his importance for the black metal scene.

People who went to see them were obviously fans... And of course you're going to hear them getting mentioned more as the band that used to play black metal if you mostly hang out in metalhead circles. They have fans outside of the metal community.

Now as to why they didn't sell enough tickets at pre-sells... I don't know what to make out of it... Maybe there isn't enough of an audience for such an ecclectic, dark, avant-garde band, regardless of how amazing they are.

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HeavenDuff
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:02 pm 
 

Larval Divination wrote:
Eh. Who would want to pay to see them if they completely abandoned their relevant material. (i.e, Bergtatt and Nattens Madrigal). Go see current Samael if you want to witness disappointment of the electronic variety.


It's pretty obvious by this post that you've not given their post-Kveldssanger material any kind of listen. You should. Some of it is quite amazing, and it has nothing to do with black metal anymore.

Ace_Rimmer wrote:
Weren't they disdainful of their metal fans and era?

Though I read that in an interview with them a long time ago.


I remember Garm playing Troldskog Faren Vild with fans in Greece a few years back. So I don't know. It seems unlikely that he would have accepted to play this song live if he hated it. All I remember him saying that was somehow contemptuous to black metal was that he changed the band's line-up at some point because the guys from the early days were not "competent" enough to play what he was writing at the present. So maybe a little contempt for the musicianship within the bm scene? I don't know.

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~Guest 285196
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:17 pm 
 

That was before. In the early 00s he seemingly got annoyed at interviews always asking him about black metal. Haavard has been credited on pretty much every project that Garm does that requires guitars, and Garm has worked with Myrkur, appeared on Ihsan, Solefald, Dimmu Borgir, Borknagar etc, so it's obviously not an open disdain.

And when Nattens Madrigal had its 20th anniversary 2 years ago, they all did interviews talking about the period.

I guess Ulver's biggest mistake was being so influential with their early material, that they never really got to establish a proper identity afterwards that could rival it. I mean, how many bands will cite Bergtatt as an influence? Probably thousands.

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Prairieshadow
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:59 pm 
 

Personally I've never been able to much get into anything post Nattens, though I'd still go see them live if the opportunity arose, without any expectation of them playing anything from that era.


Last edited by Prairieshadow on Fri May 10, 2019 2:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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caspian
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 11:36 pm 
 

Their later stuff is decent, and Julius Caeser is probably their best post-Nattens music but yeah this isn't surprising. No one expects them to play BM but at the same time it's fair to say that's basically how they got their entire fanbase, and it's also fair to say that even if you like their later stuff there's a lot more passion for the trilogy. So Falls the World and Transverberation are cool songs and all but they pale in comparison to the final tune on Bergtatt.

I rather like the band but I wouldn't go miles out of my way to hear a bunch of nu-ulver and nothing much else. Guess a lot of americans have the same opinion
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Gravetemplar
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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 5:28 am 
 

I like Perdition City a lot more and Blood Inside is also great but I agree The Assassination of Julius is their best in a while.

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HeavenDuff
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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 2:31 pm 
 

caspian wrote:
it's fair to say that's basically how they got their entire fanbase, and it's also fair to say that even if you like their later stuff there's a lot more passion for the trilogy.


No. What's with this thread and wild assumptions. You really think that their ENTIRE fanbase comes from their two black metal albums and the folk album they released in the 90's? I also assume that the people who hired them to write and perform movie soundtracks only cared for Ulver because of Bergtatt?

Seriously folks, not everyone is a metalhead, you have to stop assuming stuff based on your own experience (and the experience of your metalhead friends) to talk about Ulver. They are a well established band beyond their black metal stuff. Of course, the black metal legacy, Garm's name and the fact that he still has ties with the metal scene sure helps, but they have fans who discovered them through their electro/ambient/avant-garde stuff. And considering the quality of releases such as Perdition City, Blood Inside, The Assassination of Julius Ceaser or A Quick Fix of Melancholy, it's fair to say that even if they never were a black metal band, they'd still have a significant following.

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Ace_Rimmer
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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 2:39 pm 
 

not enough to tour the states apparently.

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HeavenDuff
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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 2:58 pm 
 

Ace_Rimmer wrote:
not enough to tour the states apparently.


They obviously are bigger in Europe than in the US, yes.

Also, reading the band's statement on Facebook, I had a feeling that they got scared they wouldn't turn a profit and cancelled. Which I can understand. They didn't want to gamble and hope that people would buy tickets just a few weeks before the show or even at the doors. Maybe if they did tour it would have worked out good for them, but they were not willing to take that risk.

Touring in the US for them also doesn't involve the same amount of expenses as for an American band. It's much more costly... and you have to take this into account. They are popular, maybe just not enough to make such a big gamble. And since they never toured the US before, they can't really know how things would turn out if they just went for it.

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Abominatrix
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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 3:42 pm 
 

Nobody is saying everyone is a metalhead, they're saying that metal is where Ulver got the vast majority of their fanbase from, and I believe that's correct. I have always had an interest in electronic music and dabbled a bit myself -- I realise this is totally anecdotal, but I only ever met one fellow who was into a bit of Ulver's stuff who wasn't also a metalhead of some kind. he was completely unaware of their metal background but said it made sense because there were some weird bits that made him think of metallica (yes, really) and those were his least favourite ulver moments. I don't know whether it's their past metal association or what, but they just don't seem to have made big inroads into the other scenes they have dabbled in. I don't think it's because they are too dark or avantgarde, either; plenty of electronic music is both those things and to a graeter degree than ulver has been.

Maybe a name change at some point would not have been a bad thing for 'em. Fresh start, and all that. Then we'd really see how much they owe to the old metal crowd. I get that it's a tricky thing and that Garm probably doesn't want to be tied down to his past, but that's just the way it is.
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Twisted_Psychology
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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 4:06 pm 
 

Nine times out of ten, any attempt made by a metal artist to get outside of metal will only be heard by their already established metal audience. I can't tell if it's a reflection of poor marketing or fickle markets, but that seems to be the way it is.
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HeavenDuff
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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 4:08 pm 
 

Abominatrix wrote:
Nobody is saying everyone is a metalhead, they're saying that metal is where Ulver got the vast majority of their fanbase from, and I believe that's correct. I have always had an interest in electronic music and dabbled a bit myself -- I realise this is totally anecdotal, but I only ever met one fellow who was into a bit of Ulver's stuff who wasn't also a metalhead of some kind. he was completely unaware of their metal background but said it made sense because there were some weird bits that made him think of metallica (yes, really) and those were his least favourite ulver moments. I don't know whether it's their past metal association or what, but they just don't seem to have made big inroads into the other scenes they have dabbled in. I don't think it's because they are too dark or avantgarde, either; plenty of electronic music is both those things and to a graeter degree than ulver has been.

Maybe a name change at some point would not have been a bad thing for 'em. Fresh start, and all that. Then we'd really see how much they owe to the old metal crowd. I get that it's a tricky thing and that Garm probably doesn't want to be tied down to his past, but that's just the way it is.


Oh, I'm not saying he said everybody is a metalhead, I'm saying that to claim that the metalheads who like Ulver a majority or the entirety (someone actually said that) of their fanbase is wrong. I'm going to go ahead and add to my previous point by saying that the metalheads who like them also do not only like them because they used to be a black metal act. They actually like the music. So this whole idea (mentioned mostly in the article discussed earlier) that show goers were just there to pay hommage to the bm Ulver is wrong. I personnally am not any less of a fan of bm Ulver or contemporary Ulver. I love both with a passion. Through their fanbase I still think that the most appreciative of their fans are the metalheads (or the ones who got to know them through their metal music prior to their later stuff) because they typically seem to enjoy both eras of Ulver, while the ones that aren't metalheads generally do not like their early stuff.

But to make my point clear, I'm not arguing that their success in the metal scene isn't helping them now. Absolutely not. It's obvious that their black metal material and it's legacy is helping bring attention to what they are doing now. Contemporary Ulver is still very metal in atmosphere, ambiance and sensibility. Hence the fact that it's so popular among metal fans. So I think we agree on this. I'm not claiming that their metal past isn't playing a role in making their contemporary stuff more popular and known to a wieder audience.

But why are you saying that they "don't seem to have made big inroads into the other scenes they have dabbled in"? And maybe a follow up question. Don't you think that, by this point, Garm knows just how much of Ulver's fans are also metalheads, and he's using this to his advantage? If you look at his recent contributions to music outside of Ulver, it's been mostly metal related stuff.

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