Neverland CD

Neverland, the fourteenth studio album by Ulver, is the sound of an escape. A journey into undiscovered lands. Following three albums The Assassination of Julius Caesar 2017, Flowers of Evil 2020, and Liminal Animals 2024 rooted in more traditional song and production structures, Neverland marks a new chapter in the revered Oslo bands history. With Neverland we embraced a more punk spirit more dreaming, less discipline freer, quite simply, the band comments on the creative process behind the album.Bursts of daybreak synths and whooshes of sound set the atmosphere, before the wolves start digging into the dynamics of ambient calm and anarchic mysticism. Dreamy and transportive textures develop into trippy percussive energies, and as the album unfolds, a lush and vibrant, and at times exotic space opens.Apart from a few recurring distant voices and vocal chops, Neverland is a largely instrumental record, reminiscent of the mood and structure of that place where late 90s IDM sounds met the meandering structures of postrock. The ghost of premillennial sample culture surely haunts Neverland, and some might even hear echoes from earlier acclaimed works like Perdition City 2000, or the Silence EPs 2001, or more recently ATGCLVLSSCAP 2016. Still, Neverland sounds and feels like something else, something fresh in Ulvers continuous journey of perennial reinvention. Pop music from inbetween.