The umpteenth Univers Zero release on Cuneiform, 2010's Clivages is bookended by two of the disc's four Daniel Denis compositions, the opening "Les Kobolds" and the closing "Les Cercles d'Horus," pieces that should gladden the hearts of aficionados who have followed UZ along their well over 30-year history. "Les Kobolds" will push all the right buttons for those enamored of the band's sound, with chamber instrumentation and electric bass and keys driven by Denis' inventive percussion, all in service to melodies and countermelodies with a somewhat Renaissance or Baroque feel, but with harmonic and textural shifts in ominous directions, as expected. UZ listeners have definitely heard this type of thing before, and in its construction and performance it recalls any number of prime Denis pieces: "Dense," "Toujours Plus à l'Est," "Presage." Likewise, the closing "Les Cercles d'Horus," with its funeral dirge drums and underlying doom-laden keyboards and bass, tips its hat to the similarly dark "Bruit dans les Murs" from 1986's Heatwave -- speaking of which, Clivages signals the return of keyboardist/guitarist Andy Kirk to the UZ fold for the first time since Heatwave; Kirk is featured as guitarist on two pieces here, most notably his own "Warrior," a 12-plus-minute composition with relentless escalating tension wholly in keeping with Kirk's Heatwave title track or "Funeral Plain" opus (with Kirk's guitar akin to that of Heatwave's fiery axeman, Michel Delory).

1		Les Kobolds
2		Warrior
3		Vacillements
4		Earth Scream
5		Soubresauts
6		Apesanteur
7		Three Days
8		Straight Edge
9		Retour de Foire
10		Cercles d'Horus

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