A recent 2022 vinyl reissue of this spook-prog masterpiece. here's my old review of the CD version; it has the same track listing, but features a remaster job for vinyl, and comes in a completely redesigned sleeve that is appropriately creepy-looking.

Regular readers of the C-Blast list have no doubt noticed that I'm a HUGE fan of the legendary Belgian chamber-prog band, and their latest album Clivages was in fact the featured new release for the last Crucial Blast new arrivals list. I've never carried their back catalog here in the shop however, so in keeping with my ongoing effort to try to turn more of you people on to the devilishly dark and baroque prog of UZ, I've picked up almost their entire catalog of releases. For those of you who are unfamiliar with 'em, Univers Zero were one of prog rock's darkest and creepiest sounding bands, a classically influenced ensemble based in Belgium that was formed and guided by the unique vision of drummer Daniel Denis, who had played with French prog gods Magma for a brief period before forming UZ. The music of Univers Zero was distinguished by its connection to 20th century music, taking more inspiration from the dissonant sounds of composers like Bartok, Penderecki and Ligeti than from any of the then-current rock forms, and performing with classical instrumentation that included cello, violin, bassoon, viola, harmonium and piano, taking a good decade before they would finally start to utilize electric instruments. The music of Univers Zero, especially early on their first couple of albums, was also notably dark and oppressive, dissonant and sometimes shockingly heavy, a sort of gothic chamber-prog that would often incorporate Lovecraftian themes of cosmic horror into their song titles and imagery, thanks to Daniel Denis's long-running fascination with the works of H.P. Lovecraft (which was also noticeable in the names of two of his previous bands, Necronomicon and Arkham). Their Bartok-meets-Magma sound and the seriously creepy vibe that still informs their music up to the present day makes UZ one of my favorite prog bands ever, and their first three albums in particular (Univers Zero, Ceux Du Dehors and especially Heresie) are highly recommended listening to any fans of serious aural menace. Since the 1980's, the prog label Cuneiform Records (located right down the road from C-Blast HQ in Silver Spring) has been reissuing the Univers Zero catalog in high-quality editions, often fleshed out with bonus material and liner notes, and all of the available UZ titles on Cuneiform are now in stock here at Crucial Blast.

While not as intensely bleak as they were on previous album Heresie, Univers Zero still travelled through dark lands on their third album Ceux Du Dehors from 1981, another absolutely essential album of creepy, sinister chamber-prog from the Belgian masters. As with the previous album,

these labyrinthine pieces move through sudden turns and complex arrangements, the music entirely instrumental save for some choral backing vocals, but the utter blackness of Heresie has dissipated here, the music still imbued with darkness and dread, but leavened a bit by some jazzier stylings and pieces that foreshadow the strange medieval sounds that Univers Zero would explore in more depth on subsequent albums. Some of their finest compositions are found here: the macabre delirium and bad-dream processional of "Triomphe des Mouches", the creepy carnival nightmare and medieval waltz of "La Corne du Bois des Pendus", the staccato martial aggression and sinister electronic noise blat of "Combat", the grim classical doom of "La Tete Du Corbeau". And "La Musique D'Erich Zann" is the album's token Lovecraft reference, an improvised piece (one of the few improv pieces that Univers Zero would include on a studio album) that's one of UZ's most abstract and hellish sounding recordings, a brief blackened dronescape of dungeon ambience, dripping atmosphere, atonal scraped cello strings, and wheezing discordant harmonium notes.