ULVER - Neverland

You always expect a surprise from Ulver, a sudden swerve, a new journey toward as-yet-uncharted musical shores. And yet the hypothetical synth-pop trilogy that wrapped up in 2024 with “Liminal Animals” (an album that was neither here nor there) left us with a project that seemed to have settled for dropping anchor in a comfort zone that, at any rate, plenty of aficionados were happy to embrace.

“Neverland” reverses course, but this shift shouldn't be mistaken for a genuine evolution, since the Norwegian wolves had already tried their hand at ambient-electronic sounds in the past. But while, say, “Perdition City” (2000) was the offspring of the most enveloping urban atmospheres of the 90's, this return looks elsewhere entirely, starting with the image on the cover.

Indeed, the eleven tracks on the tracklist form a series of imaginary islands to land on, a state of mind that keeps renewing itself through a dreamlike mood underpinned by constant synthetic progressions and, very rarely, by the intervention of rarefied, distant voices.

At times, “Neverland” draws heavily even from “ATGCLVLSSCAP” (2016), though it sets aside that record's experimental post-rock dimension in favor of a dreamy, hallucinatory brand of electronics. But the structure stays more or less unchanged, since this time Ulver are betting almost everything on atmosphere: something at once cold and exotic, as if a Jules Verne novel were being leafed through by a magnetic wind blowing in from some distant galaxy.

Other worlds, other seas, other planets—yet "Neverland" doesn't fully convince, and even turns rather aseptic during a second half that isn't quite up to par (if we set aside the remarkable tribalism of "Pandora's Box"). Few real emotions, then, from a band that (unfortunately and fortunately) has spoiled us too well, and that today can't and shouldn't just coast. Settling for less would be a crime.

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03/01/2026