Music for role-playing games: Ulver

Continuing on in our series of background music for role-playing games we look at the Norwegian Black Metal band turned increasingly electronica band Ulver.

Ulver started off as a Black Metal band in Norway in the early 1990′s and their first album is actually very good (containing some folk elements and decent production). Unfortunately the next 2-3 albums were not as good, and tend to follow in the rusty chainsaw, ‘look mum I recorded this in the basement’ production qualities that a lot of Black Metal bands suffered from for a while.

Then something happened…

Moving on from Black Metal (but still adhering to their roots…) they switched to a kind of dark ambient electronica that combines elements of jazz, pop, soundtrack, symphonic, gospel, metal, insert genre here, etc. The change is jaw dropping in a way, and because they ‘stayed true’ to their roots, they kept the same fan-base that they had started out with, and gained a new following as well. The change in style brought added attention from movie makers and Ulver have composed soundtracks and scores for a number of films.

In terms of gaming music, the best place to start is their Shadows of the Sun (2007) and Blood Inside (2005) albums, both of which are available here.

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