Customer Reviews

Rev

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Who is Ultra Vivid Scene? Nobody cares and nobody knows. I know everyone is going to disagree but Kurt Ralske is more of a genius than Kurt Cobain. He is simply the better Kurt, the most important Kurt in the 90s. Both 'Nevermind' and 'Rev' were released in 1991, the former became the touchstone of all 90s' rock albums, well, it is good, but in no way greater than any of the UVS album. While the latter is a classic that is simply unheard of, even to those 4AD fanatics, the UVS sound faded away after 'Rev' was released. For a long 9 years, nothing from UVS has been released. I guess even the decaying 4AD label is not interested in releasing anything by UVS. Kurt's one-man show is uncategorizale, the music just cannot sell, they are not as melancholic as Radiohead and Red House Painter, not as angry as every punk band, not as cutting-edge as MBV, not as etheral as Cocteau Twins, not as pop as most pop bands. An outcast in the music industry. Nobody cares. Everyone keeps on dismissing the band because no major media have covered them. I really feel sorry for Kurt, but I am even more regretful for the general public, for not having a chance to be exposed to this. Just listen to the album: The first track sounds quite accessible actually, Kurt seems to be quite cheerful, he doesn't seem to have the angst that possessed the other Kurt. These are just superficies. Take note of the lyrics: It talks about blood, talks about suicide, talks about 'She comes, she comes...'. Get the idea? No? OK, just move on to the second track 'Cut-Throat', from the title of the track, it isn't hard to tell that this track, again talks about suicide. The guy talks about suicide as a joy, as if he is he enjoys it. He may, who knows? The guitar riff he provides here gives a mideast touch, inspired by fellow labelmate Dead Can Dance. Not impossible. Then came one of the masterpieces of the album, 'Mirror To Mirror', you gotta listen to it to believe it is true. But before you do, just check out these lyrics: 'All the silver all the black and gold, all the action all the perfect leading roles, all the singles dreaming double all the time, while all the others wait in line...all the things you touch and things you think you see, are not as they appear to be mirror to mirror, to praise the soul keep, the mirror knows to keep the soul to sleep... the mirror breaks to wake you from your sleep'. Certainly, this tells me a lot of things I have never released before, Kurt Ralske is a thinker and a poet as well. The mood changes when the lyrics come to 'the mirror breaks...', the cheerful facade is destroyed, the mirror breaks to wake you from your sleep. Now you realized that all might be hallucination...Get it? This is an album about different aspects of life: Love, Sex, Death, Suicide and Life itself.I can go on and on to explain, it will only bore you because you can never understand. Other highlights are 'A Portion of Delight','Blood and Thunder', 'Medicating Angel' as well as the hyponotic classic 'Thief's Love Song',obscure lyrics, intriguing arrangement, even the mood bewilders you. It doesn't sound like anything you have ever heard before. I really didn't understand what the song was talking about, I just knew everything is beautiful here, so I kept on listening to that track. Every time I listened to the song, it gave me a different feeling. It was not until I listened to it for at least 200 times, I finally saw the light... I am not going to tell you what this song actually means, you gotta figure it out yourself. This is the centrepiece of the album, the centrepiece of the century, the summary of everybody's source of infinite sadness. It is simply my favorite song of the 90's, only Radiohead's 'Paronoid Android' comes close to it. I know I have said a lot, wanted to say more. But who is going to care anyway? In the end, I am just writing some drivel that nobody understands, sad loser I am, indeed I am.

UVS's albums have sent shivers down my spine for the last twelve years. Of all of them, Rev seems to best stand the test of time. (Don't get me wrong, the others are fantastic too, but are perhaps more of their period). It's the most varied in mood and pace, and has a wider range of mood and tempo. Decadent, dispassionate - yet intense - vocals; soaring, sliding guitars; tension meticulously built up and relieved. A criminally under-rated artist. Kurt, there's an 80's/90,s revival. Do us all a favour and get down to that recording studio.

Virtual one-man band Kurt Ralske (aka "Ultra Vivid Scene") has definitely worn out his early Pink Floyd albums. This album of textured dream-pop (with a rough edge tossed in here and there) should please you if you enjoy a little psychedelia mixed in with your alternative. Standout track: "Mirror To Mirror",an atomospheric and insidiously hypnotic number. This is definitely one for the headphones!

I remember listening to Blood and Thunder once on the radio and getting the name of the band. I really thought it was a great song with it's droning sounds and great drums and it stayed in my memory for a long time. I suppose the song is religious in a strange sort of way. Is it a psychotic hymn to Jesus and communion? One can only speculate. I was pretty poor at the time though and I didn't want to pay the price for the album. Years later, I finally picked it up dirt cheap. Fortunately, I found the other songs equal to or about as good as Blood and Thunder. Portion of Delight seems to about making love to a virgin and Thief's Love Song uses high-pitched female vocals; these songs border on the erotic without being obvious. How Sweet has a nice slinky feel with its growling rhythm guitar chords. Mirror to Mirror is haunting. The CD sustains its dreamy floating feel throughout. The singer has a low-key, nasal, almost whispery voice. He's not very emotional and his lyrics are vague, but it's mainly the music that's the star here with its great guitar and drum work. Another guitar fanatic, Matthew Sweet, plays bass on some tracks. I like him too. UVS is not as sentimental or emotional as Sweet is with his down-to-earth lyrics though. They both have mild-mannered vocal styles, but UVS does not use a whole lot of background vocals or vocals that emphasize melody as much. I would give it five stars but I can't relate to the opaque lyrics much emotionally, although I can't say they're annoying. They sort of float over your head like that ghost. I thought this CD was better than similar CDs, like Urban Hymns or OK Computer--by a long shot.

Excellent 1991 album, deserving of top rank for the 90's. I suppose grunge wiped this comparatively sophisticated album off the charts into oblivion, but, like Roxy Music's "Avalon" of nearly a decade earlier, it endures as a crooner's meditation and confrontation with evocative but evanescent beauty. Sexual obsession permeates many of the tracks, which have overlays ranging from the Velvets, The Who, Led Zep, and classic rock from the early 70s. This may seem surprising to those who had heard his one-man UVS (too tinny sounding, but not bad) and "Joy" efforts, but this surpasses even "Joy," which holds up well as a catchy, solid DIY album. It's a pity that Kurt Ralske, who seems to have moved into production (Lotion, Lilys) later in the decade, no longer issues his own promising music.

"Rev" takes the sheen of its predecessor and dips it into a darker, bloodier taint. The lyrical fascination with seduction, secretion, and submission makes this a modern take on Severin or even a younger John Cale. Kurt Ralske, working with other musicians here to round out a luxuriantly cushioned bed of sound, thickens his previous songcraft by stirring in more menace. His crooning style does lack necessary range, and makes the tracks more samey than they are musically, yet this consistency does weave its power well.

The Middle Eastern influences merged with a Keith Moon-type drum assault, for instance, make marvelously hypnotic soundtracks for erotic reverie, headphone introspection, and/or late-night accompaniment. The addition of other musicians here warms up what had been a rather too-clinical detachment on the first two UVS albums. Ralske's choice here is the right one. This album cradles you and pushes you away, and it contains a magnetic personality within that few records create, sustain, and beckon again a listener to return to when its mood invites.

imagine lou reed and led zeppelin jamming in 1972 and something like this might've gone down. 'the velvet underground' meets 'led zeppelin III'? i dunno, what an amazing album though. too bad this was UVS's last one. personally i think this LP pretty much blows away their 1st 2, although some UVS fans seem to differ. this is the only one to feature a real live backing band and not drum machines, though, and i think that was the real key to the magic. totally inspired and clever. hypnotic and spellbinding. sit back and relax. thank you mr ralske :)

It's kind of depressing to know that only 1% of the population has heard of this band, but I'm happy to be one of those that have. I actually like the other two albums more than this, but "Rev" is still amazing as well. This album was a great alternative to "alternative" in 1993, though it would be catagorized as such. As much as I've listened to this through the years, I can't think of anything to compare it to. But know that getting this is well worth it just for "Thief's Love Song". It's hypnotic and beautiful like most of the album is. Some copies of this come with a 4 track bonus disc too.

Ok, I buy and listen to a lot of different kinds of music, from Alt-rock and Neo-Progressive, to straight pop, and no album in the nineties has ever cried out for a mass audience like Rev, the great lost album of the decade. Unlike the reviewer below I have never been able to quite figure out what the songs mean, but for me that is a good thing. The mood is somber and mysterious, even as the record has moments of fire and flash. Thieves love song, Medicating Angel, and How Sweet linger in the memory long after the album is over, like a nightmare that you had as a child and can never quite forget. Brilliant....beautiful. It's even more of a catastrophe, that Kurt Ralske has been relativly silent after this, releasing no new albums (though he did help produce some tracks on Ivy's first record.) Rev ranks as one of the best albums of the decade, nothing else sounds quite like it. The Candida EP contains a couple of leftover tracks that are just as fascinating, one, She's a Diamond, has a straight rock riff not dissimilar to some long forgotten T Rex song. I have no idea where Kurt got his influences from, his two previous releases were slightly poppy and instantly forgettable, but this only proves that once in a great while, completly out of the blue, inspiration strikes like lightening, and an obscure artist is granted immortality. I only wish that this genius could've been shared by more of us.

This is a tasty alt-rock CD. I strongly recommend it if you dig sinewy guitar work, great hooks, cool lyrics, and driving rhythm. An even greater effort by UVS is "Joy:1967-1995" - a stellar work - not a single weak track on this one. If you dig alternative rock (low grunge/high musicianship), immediately acquire "Joy" (if you can find it).

Excellent 1991 album, deserving of top rank for the 90's. I suppose grunge wiped this comparatively sophisticated album off the charts into oblivion, but, like Roxy Music's "Avalon" of nearly a decade earlier, it endures as a crooner's meditation and confrontation with evocative but evanescent beauty. Sexual obsession permeates many of the tracks, which have overlays ranging from the Velvets, The Who, Led Zep, and classic rock from the early 70s. This may seem surprising to those who had heard his one-man UVS (too tinny sounding, but not bad) and "Joy" efforts, but this surpasses even "Joy," which holds up well as a catchy, solid DIY album. It's a pity that Kurt Ralske, who seems to have moved into production (Lotion, Lilys) later in the decade, no longer issues his own promising music.

"Rev" takes the sheen of its predecessor and dips it into a darker, bloodier taint. The lyrical fascination with seduction, secretion, and submission makes this a modern take on Severin or even a younger John Cale. Kurt Ralske, working with other musicians here to round out a luxuriantly cushioned bed of sound, thickens his previous songcraft by stirring in more menace. His crooning style does lack necessary range, and makes the tracks more samey than they are musically, yet this consistency does weave its power well.

The Middle Eastern influences merged with a Keith Moon-type drum assault, for instance, make marvelously hypnotic soundtracks for erotic reverie, headphone introspection, and/or late-night accompaniment. The addition of other musicians here warms up what had been a rather too-clinical detachment on the first two UVS albums. Ralske's choice here is the right one. This album cradles you and pushes you away, and it contains a magnetic personality within that few records create, sustain, and beckon again a listener to return to when its mood invites.