Style: avant-garde black metal, progressive black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Dødheimsgard, The Ruins of Beverast, Behemoth (just the good parts of The Satanist), Imperial Triumphant, Heilung
Country: Poland
Release date: 10 January 2025
The dawn of time. Now that I have your attention, fast forward a few billion years to the primordial soup, then a few billion more to proto-humans. Here is the origin of music, a concept so profoundly central to human culture that it’s hard to imagine a world without it. I strongly recommend reading Gary Tomlinson’s A Million Years of Music if you’re interested in the development of music by early hominids, detailing several theories about its origins in toolmaking and collective expression. This is all fascinating stuff and while Uulliata Digir don’t look quite so far back, they are deeply inspired by the ancient Sumerians, even writing in a language inspired by what linguists know of Sumerian.
Uulliata Digir centers on an incantational energy, a hypnotic percussion that could be grounded in that ancient toolmaking. However, Krzysztof Kulis’s drumming is not simply a mechanism for tired droning; indeed, he is an animal on the kit with endless embellishments and varying patterns on top of the unchanging underlying beat. Each of the three true songs—there are two interludes—introduces a rhythm at the start and builds on it throughout, growing in magnitude and heft while vocal melodies and dissonant trumpets and guitars clash. The lengthy buildup in “Myrthys” is redolent of The Ruins of Beverast’s “Exuvia” with Uulliata Digir’s buzzing guitars and the animalistic growls of Michał Sosnowski. Providing an excellent balance to the gruffness, trumpeter Magdalena Andrys and female vocalist Julita Dąbrowska steal the show, the distinct timbre of the brassy horn cutting through the repetitious dissonant guitar parts and Dąbrowska’s mix of prayer-like melodies and shouts that sound eerily like a human truly in pain providing the main melodic contours of Uulliata Digir’s sound.
Although inspired by the ancients, Uulliata Digir adds a modern twist with that trumpet, inciting a weirdness to the band’s sound that at times reminds me of Denmark’s Dystopia and at others of New York’s skronky Imperial Triumphant as in the dueling guitar and trumpet solo of 5:45 in “Omni Dirga.” The production quality of Uulliata Digir is also quite polished, not afraid to get murky but always clear, especially bassist Bartłomiej Kerber who clacks away like a prog death musician underneath the ringing guitar parts. The whole package is like proto-industrial Germanic folk music à la Heilung but with a distorted guitar and trumpet twist, and the schtick works well.
The strength of Uulliata Digir’s compelling ritual-ness also is the album’s pitfall, the ever-repetitive guitar and beat becoming tired by the end of the forty minute album, especially how horrible the choice of dissonant chord is; it’s ugly and sounds like the random choice of somebody picking up a guitar for the first time more than foreboding or eerie. Moreover, the project is wholly immersive to a certain point and then I lose interest around the three-quarter mark every spin. Perhaps closer “Eldrvari” is just weaker than what came before—except for a lovely a cappella bit around the middle that transitions into the heaviest moments of Uulliata Digir—but I believe it’s a similar quality as the rest, mostly because it sounds so similar to what came before. I am sure performed live this album would be an absolute trip, dancing in the fog trying to fend off Grendel or something, but I lose out on the experience of musicking listening on my own.
The brand of metal which Uulliata Digir peddles is always a treat when composed well, and I enjoy vibing out to something which feels so quintessentially human, hearkening back to our earliest ancestors (or the Sumerians). This project is forcible for a debut with strong performances behind the kit and dynamic female vocals, but it lacks the finishing touches of a project like Ershetu or The Ruins of Beverast, the repeated dissonant chord of the guitar growing flat-out annoying. Nonetheless, I can certainly recommend this as a fun start to the year for other weirdo metalheads.
Recommended tracks: Myrthys, Omni Dirga
You may also like: Amun, Dystopia, Ershetu, Dordeduh
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram
Label: independent
Uulliata Digir is:
– Krzysztof Kulis (drums)
– Marcin Tuliszkiewicz (guitars, synths)
– Bartłomiej Kerber (bass)
– Bartłomiej Kerber (bass)
– Magdalena Andrys (trumpet)
– Michał Sosnowski (vocals)
– Julita Dąbrowska (vocals)
