Childhood's End

Ulver is one of my most beloved bands out there right now for several reasons. I just love their entire musical career from their black metal days to what they are doing now. They just make me space out and relax, and I love music that can make me do that. One of my favorite musical eras also happens to be the 1960's, so for Ulver to cover not-so-well-known-songs from that time, I just had to check it out! I was 100% hooked on how the band envisioned the songs, and just how AWESOME this album sounds! Even though its just an album of covers, this is defiantly one of my favorite Ulver releases. Another thing I love about this, is that it really showcases Kristoffer Rygg's amazing singing. I have never heard him sing in this style before, and it truly sounds beautiful. Ulver manages to keep the spirit of the 60's while maintaining that signature Ulver sound, and that's what makes this a truly wonderful album.

to catch a pest, you have to think like a pest...this album gives the sense of vast dark secret knowledge being communicated, knowledge which yet requires intensive (and probably faulty) interpretation...like some whales are doing something really meaningful down below, and but all you have to go by is the waves their actions make on the surface...

Ulver is a great band and their music is fascinating & wonderful. However, this double LP release of Childhood's End is on very low quality, warped vinyl. This is very surprising and uncharacteristic of KScope records and Ulver. I'm not sure why they would bother spreading the record out to two LP's for sound quality and then put it on non-180g wobbly thin vinyl.

Easily one of the greatest cover albums ever conceived, the production, song selection and musicianship are nothing short of superb!

Given Ulver's ever-eclectic musical progression, starting out as a folk-inflicted black metal band and slowly evolving into an experimental unit making forays into electronic and avant-garde territory, some of their fans would probably embrace Childhood's End as a brand new studio release if they didn't know it was an album consisting of covers by 60s psychedelic bands. And we're not talking about bands like The Doors. Ulver covers some of the most obscure acts of the era. Actually, quite a few of these bands have only released a single album: Gandalf's "Can You Travel in the Dark Alone?" and Les Fleur de Lys' "I Can See the Light" are, therefore, revived 'new' tunes for some of us.Of course, the riff-centred, visceral rock tunes whose first verses are comprised by awfully predictable lyrics like "Love love love love" will have even the die-hard fan scratching their heads, as it is uncharacteristic for even a band like Ulver. Songs like "66-5-4-3-2-1," with its unmistakable garage rock-meets-punk riffs or the catchy, hook-laden melodies of "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night" with cringe-worthy backing vocals and hand-clapped rhythmic anchoring do not quite work within Ulver's trajectory. What works, however, is the brilliantly 'Ulverized' sections of even the poppiest compositions: the heavily synth-drenched notes of "The Trap" sees Garm delivering the vocals a lot more slowly than the original version. The music is heightened to another level, rife with nuance and detail. The fuzzy guitar sound underscores a thick synth figure over which a deft drum solo is placed. Jefferson Airplane's "Today" is treated to a different mix. It has a modified guitar sound, and the vocals are slightly faster on this one. Also, they are catchier and more powerful. The final part where Garm begs "Please please, listen to me" is infectious, and it matches, if not surpasses, the original piece, which is also fantastic, by the way.Overall, though, the album presents a great picture of the psychedelic movement, mixing a strong dose of synthesizers and lighter-than-air percussion into the songs. The band's use of organs is stunning, and the moody, jazz-inflicted elements brought in to widen the scope of the tracks will have any fan happy. Some of the arrangements perfectly exemplify the roots of psychedelia while others belie that they are cover tunes. The version of "Everybody Has Been Burned Before" could well have been a song on Shadows of the Sun. Check out the soaring guitar arpeggio at the end - simply wonderful. "Where is Yesterday?" boasts plenty of reverb in its chaotic mix, creating lots of echo and distortion in the instrumental part, complete with tense silences and coiling melodies pushed forward by lilting, acid-drenched guitars. All throughout, the production is ingenious, as expected.The artwork of the album is very fitting to the mood and period of these songs. It features Nick Ut's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of ' The Girl in the Picture ', a 9-year-old Vietnamese girl running naked towards Ut's camera after a napalm attack on her village in South Vietnam. Her clothes are torn off and she's badly burned. It is one of the most memorable pictures of the twentieth century, and I'm glad it will live on through Ulver's art, just like the wonderful artwork of Shadows of the Sun.

Not much needs to be said about this release, except that Ulver did an outstanding job in bringing these old psychedelic songs back to life! Ulver style of course.This cd is a true treasure and highly enjoyable. It's obvious how much effort Ulver put into this and it really shows. Enough said. 5 Stars. Deserved.

After listening to Ulver's outstanding Childhood's End I got curious about the original versions of the songs, so I searched for them on YouTube and compiled this playlist, featuring all 16 tracks on Childhood's End, in the same order, but in their original glory.https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7MG2h-z40E5Uo0NuHx6FK3YUN8MUsOAFIt isn't quite as cohesive as Ulver's interpretation—not that surprising, given that the tracks are by 16 different artists and were spread over a fairly large period from 1966 to 1973—but it does make for a rather good listen and has opened up new areas of musical exploration for me.Ulver has, of course, given all the songs a lick of Ulver paint, resulting in darker, more haunting versions compared to the originals. What impressed me most about Childhood's End is how Ulver has managed to pull all these songs together and make them sound as if they were written by a single artist, intended to be part of a single release, while at the same time respecting the originals, leaving them intact and maintaining their individual character.

Very good album, fast deliverie

....Che coverizzano cosa? Pezzi Psichedelici degli anni 70? Nah. E invece una piacevole sopresa sia dal punto di vista musicale che di riscoperta storica di brani semi sconosciuti di gruppi più o meno sconosciuti. La genialità degli Ulver passa anche da qui.

Un disco que todo amante del rock debería poseer.

Suena genial y aunque no me llego en cuanto lo pedí amazon me lo soluciono