Bergtatt' is the first full length release from the legendary Norwegian outfit, Ulver. This album, released in 1994 features excellent musicianship, folk elements, and ripping black metal.
Lineup...
Garm - vocals
AiwarikiaR - drums
Skoll - bass
Haavard - guitar
Aismal - guitar
I Troldskog Faren Vild: Starts with a slow drum fill, right into tremelo picking. This song is not extreme tremelo picking, it's more mellow. Garms vocals add so much to this track, it is unbelievable. His voice here (much different from his Arcturus days) is like the voice of an angel, his singing adds just another dimension here. The music in this song just has different variations for the most part. About midway through, a solo comes in, a very mellow solo that goes along with the music, it almost serves the purpose of a lead part. The solo and vocals interchange once here, making for a nice combination, one leading right into another before returning to the mellow tremelo picking. At the end of the song, there is an acoustic part, it's played very well, the acoustic part picks up the song. When the guitars return the song is more upbeat, it's almost a rock/metal riff along with a lead part. This part serves as the climax of the song. The song fades out with a solo.
4/5 Mellow but yet very good track.
Soelen Gaaer Bag Aase Need: The song starts off very folk, acoustic guitars along with a flute, very well played, good part. This leads right into blistering black metal, it's more traditional black metal, along with screams and extreme drums. Then along with the black metal, and along with the screams Garm begins to sing, a very nice vocal combination here. Soon the song becomes more mellow along with Garm singing, similiar to the first song. Garms voice almost gives the song a symphonic feel (If indeed you can get that with vocals). Eventually the song picks up to the black metal pace it established before, this part is quite good, the guitars become a little more melodic throughout this part before slowing down to a more mellow folk pace, along with Garm's beautiful singing. Then at the end of the song, an acoustic guitar comes into the mix for one measure and the song ends with Garm singing alone.
4/5 Solid track.
Graablick Blev Hun Vaer: This song starts with a combination of Acoustic guitar work and Garm singing (though he's not singing any particular words). This song rips you apart out of nowhere into traditional black metal. Eventually Ulver works a lead part into here, a step away from the traditional black metal. This lead part leads right into an acoustic part. The next few minutes of this song is a combination of nature, a man walking through the woods and some light piano in the background. After this, the song picks up a lot, the guitar riff is melodic and fast, along with great drums. Garm utilizes both singing and screaming in this last part of the song.
5/5 Great track
Een Stemme Locker: This song is four minutes of acoustic guitar, there are some spoken words in it, but nothing special here. Not much to review, other than the guitar is played well, but for too long.
2/5 I hate to give it a rating that low, but i skip this track.
Bergtatt - Ind i Fjeldkamrene: This songs arrangement is purely wonderful. It starts off black metal, but weaves between acoustic/folk elements and black metal. This song is almost like a recap of the whole album, combining elements from each song into here. There are lead parts here, along with mellow guitar work along with tremelo picking. This song seems to pick up more and more energy as it moves forward. This song ends with some good acoustic guitar work, along with some reverse delay effect (I was not expecting that effect when i first listened to this album.)
I'm going to review this next part as a seperate song, even though it is in this track.
A few seconds after the reverse delay acoustic work, there is silence and some acoustic guitars come in. The guitars are totally different from this song, they are beatifully arranged and meant to put an ending to this album, it's the perfect ending to such a beautiful album.
5/5 Great track
This album gets a 4.5/5. It combines elements of folk music, black metal and melody along with the atmosphere that black metal is known for, and they do it very, VERY well.
