The Ruins of Human Failure by Úlfarr is just what the doctor ordered on this cold, dank UK night.
It has been, quite frankly, a shit ass day where my kids have been out of fucking control, my ex reminded me at every turn why she is now my fucking ex, and I spent a good hour trawling through Bandcamp and Ampwall trying to find something, anything, to resonate with the foul mood and horrible cloud that seemed to be following me around like the stentch of death, and just when I was aboutbto give up, say ‘Fuck it. I’m taking the weekend off’, I stumbled across The Ruins of Human Faliure by Úlfarr, and for 25 glorious minutes I could deafen myself with Black Metal that was as angry as balls as I was and forget that today had been such a fucking car crash.
The opening four tracks of this EP/Album are The Ruins of Human Failure Parts 1-4, and they are different variations on a theme. I expect that these are all supposed to be listened to as one long piece, but they are so hell for leather and so aggressive that as four seperate tracks or one massive song, The Ruins of Human Failure flies by at such a pace that it feels as if it’s over before it began. It doesn’t out stay it’s welcome and is a wonderfully violent song/collection of songs that will have you releasing all your pent up rage in the right way, by slamming off the front room walls and wondering how you’re going to explain the shoulder shaped holes suring your next landlord inspection.
A couple of posters should do it..
But for me, the standout tracks are the final two on this record, Forgotten by Time and Cold in Death. If The Ruins of Human Faliure is pure aggression, then these two are the tortured cries of a tortured soul, raging against the dying of the light.
Cold in Death is a melancholy instrumental – if there can be such a thing in Black Metal – that brings the EP/Album to an introspective, but harsh close, while Forgotten by Time is Úlfarr screaming into the heart of the storm that blackens the skies and threatens to sweep all before it away. Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in, maybe it caught me at the wrong time but the right place, but there is something so anguished, so despairing about Forgotten by Time it caught me by surprise. It is raw, it is unfiltered, and it is fucking perfect.
The Ruins of Human Failure is a great entry into the Black Metal pantheon, and one that you can have all for yourself by heading on over to the Úlfarr Bandcamp page.
