Ulthar impressed me mightily with the release of Providence in 2020, an album that felt unhinged and slightly chaotic but that still kept the momentum up with plenty of ideas. Fast forward to the current year and Ulthar announces that they are releasing not one, but two follow-ups to their sophomore album. I will be tackling the other one separately but first let us focus on Helionomicon, the odd duck of the two. Unlike what came before, Helionomicon consists of only two tracks that both hover around the 20 minute mark.
The song “Helionimicon” keeps intact Ulthar‘s NES-Metroid-tremolo-heavy style with plenty of whiplash turns into intense moments. In contrast, though, this album hones in on a rhythmic approach and constructs its two heavy songs, as you might expect, around slow builds. “Helionomicon” in particular feels like it almost entirely consists of a build around a single tremolo riff and this is an approach that gets tiresome fast. Try as it might to shift up the tempo, this song just never sounds like it knows where it is going. This is something that is absolute death to a 20 minute song, a length which already did not feel ideal for the kind of music Ulthar have created thus far.
Helionomicon features subdued moments to provide contrast, including some ambient stretches. Unsurprisingly, while these moments provide a nice space for the band to play around with the more lush production that graces these albums, nothing much comes of it. “Anthronomicon” hits differently, as the two pieces on this album has two different members of the band handling the writing. This latter song is much more aggressive and has more ups and downs compared to its sibling. The electronics in particular show some promise of what Ulthar could play around with in the future. I find myself liking different parts of the song while it thrashes back and forth trying to make sense of itself. Both from hearing the album and reading interviews, it is clear that Ulthar are experimenting freely and that is something I always appreciate. But it is hard to recommend something this dense and unfocused to anyone but their most diehard fans. I am left with the feeling that this album has a cryptic for the sake of being cryptic approach meant to dress up experimentation as engaging songs, making it a swing-and-miss for me.
