The Shamen - UV Mp3

A ridiculous pity, this album. I confess, I found it in a record shop a few years after it had been released - I didn't even realise at the time!
But that wasn't the pity. This album, while by no means terrible, is atrocious in terms of the creative promise which The Shamen were insisting for years was being stifled by One Little Indian. After having finally broken free from their old label and the increasingly acrimonious relationship, I would have expected something bejewelled, experimental and mind-expanding. But this album delivers nothing of the sort. Some very passable instrumental tunes, some rather 'meh' Amerindian tribal themes in the songs' lyrics (like a throwback to 'Axis Mutatis' in many ways), all adding up to an acceptably Shamanesque, yet forgettable, record. Ultimately it sounds like what was left over in the archives of 'previously unreleased' material.
Is this what Angus was so keen to get away from OLI in order to make? Perhaps he didn't know what he was all about, after all? They did this and then, like a fart on the breeze, they were gone.
Perhaps the greatest irony of this disappointing album is that their previous release, the supposedly hate-fuelled 'Hempton Manor' was in every way a thematically tighter album with far superior motifs, melodies and ideas.
A sad end to a previously good band's discography.

On my copy there is no bonus of "Drug Star". After "Metatron" all comes to an end.

Halfway between the two reviews. Universal is a poor song and 3 versions of it on a studio album is pretty ridiculous, but there's some great tracks on this album. Mercury and Pop are up there with anything they ever did.

Not at all agree with the previous entry. UV is from my point of view one of the best Shamen album. Even if there are several versions of U nation, the whole album does worth listening. It's a journey between space and time