review by: Roberto Martinelli

This album caused me to have a bit of a roller coaster ride of feelings and opinions about it. Curiosity, disbelief, ridicule, interest, more ridicule, more interest, appreciation, and finally respect and admiration. This, folks, is, whether you like it or not, an undeniably unique album.

Ok, ok, so what is it? Well, I guess you could classify Za Frûmi as a dark ambient project. However, Za Frûmi avoid using any keyboards, those instruments that greatly ruin most of the dark ambient compositions that feature them. Instead, this Swedish group concentrates on a rich variety of acoustic instruments: woodwinds, flutes, lots of percussion (a great deal of it metallic), strings, and some stunning male and female choir work. As an instrumental piece of work, Za Shum Ushatar Uglakh stands as an outstanding effort. However, we are still just scratching the surface of what this album is about.

Za Shum Ushatar Uglakh is a concept album, one that tells the tale of a band of Orcs. The band, led by its leader Uglakh, goes on a journey and has various adventures and experiences. The story culminates in the band battling against the vampire Ismael. The whole plot is carefully documented and explained in the booklet. Some of the plot can seem to be structured rather peculiarly, as the Orcs spend time doing some pretty corny things, like arguing over a toadstool, for example. But the kicker is this: the whole album is in Orc. Yes. What this ends up sounding like is a bunch of seemingly random guttural noises. According to the interview with Za Frûmi in this issue, someone invented a 5,000-word vocabulary Orc language. A look at the transcripted dialogue between the seven characters seems to validate that Orc is indeed a tool that could be developed for international espionage, for example. Luckily for the rest of us, a translation is also available, allowing us to read into passages such as this:

Uglakh: Stay calm. We are in Ismael's castle now.
Knish: Oh me oh my.
Golug: Quiet! Listen to Uglakh!
Kapul: There is a stairway over there.
Uglakh: We are coming.
Knish: Sneak and creep.
Kapul: I will run over there.
Knish: Is there a wolf over there?
Kapul: Yes, many.
Uglakh: Charge!…..

Whether you think it's really cheesy or brilliant (perhaps also cheesily brilliant or brilliantly cheesy?), this album is a must have on its uniqueness value alone. Oh, by the way, from what I've learned of the Orc language, Za Frûmi means "the spirits". An interesting 50 minutes of listening guaranteed.