History Music / UniversZero

The band started adding electric instrumentation in the '80s, but strangely, this resulted in their music becoming moderately LighterAndSofter (though still significantly darker than most other progressive rock). This may have been in part due to the departure of original guitarist Roger Trigaux, who left in 1979 to form his own band, Music/{{Present}}. The two bands have shared personnel throughout their careers and are stylistically similar; they also collaborated with members of a third Belgian group, Aranis, on a project called Once Upon a Time in Belgium, which contained a whopping [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters seventeen-person lineup]] and performed at a 2011 Rock in Opposition festival. Despite these changes, Univers Zero itself has also had a fairly consistent sound throughout its career.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The band membership. The website Discogs lists some twenty-seven people as having been members over the years, and it's not even clear if that's a complete list.

* TitleByNumber: ''1313'' was the catalogue number of the band's debut album. In some releases of the album, this has been adopted as the official title, while in others, it's a SelfTitledAlbum. Most fans know both titles, and they both seem to be regarded as official.

Univers Zero (also written as Univers Zéro or Univers-Zero) is a Belgian ProgressiveRock band formed in 1973 under the name Necronomicon, after a fictitious book that first appeared in the writings of Creator/HPLovecraft; they changed their name the following year. The band's original name gives a good indication of what their sound is like, however; their music tends to be ''much'' DarkerAndEdgier than the works of an average ProgressiveRock band, even though most of their early work features exclusively acoustic instruments. They were one of the founders of the "Rock in Opposition" movement, which was explicitly formed as a reaction to the commercialisation of the music industry at the time; their music tends to be heavily influenced by 20th century classical composers such as Music/BelaBartok, Music/IgorStravinsky, and Albert Huybrechts and has also been referred to as "chamber rock".

Univers Zero disbanded in 1987, but reconstituted itself in 1999. Drummer and composer Daniel Denis spent time in the similar French ensemble Music/ArtZoyd in the interim. In total, Univers Zero has released ten studio albums and a handful of live releases and [=EPs=]. Although they are unlikely ever to be more than a CultClassic, Univers Zero are a particularly acclaimed example of dark ProgressiveRock.

* TitleByNumber: ''1313'' was the catalogue number of the band's debut album. In some releases of the album, this has been adopted as the official title, while in others, it's a SelfTitledAlbum. Most fans know both titles.

* LighterAndSofter: The band's work after ''Heresie'' lightened up slightly, but remains quite dark by progressive rock standards.

* StartMyOwn: Guitarist Roger Trigaux left in 1979 to form his band Present.

The band started adding electric instrumentation in the '80s, but strangely, this resulted in their music becoming moderately LighterAndSofter (though still significantly darker than most other progressive rock). This may have been in part due to the departure of original guitarist Roger Trigaux, who left to form his own band, Music/{{Present}}. Despite these changes, Univers Zero has had a fairly consistent sound throughout its career.

* UncommonTime: As expected for a ProgressiveRock band, this is all over the place.

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: In addition to the band's original name, they also have a song titled "La musique d'Erich Zann" after Creator/HPLovecraft's short story "The Music of Erich Zann".

* NightmareFetishist: The band themselves, given their references to serial killers, Lovecraft stories, and ''their music''.

* FunWithAcronyms: ''Uzed'' is a pun on how a Commonwealth English speaker would abbreviate the band's name ("UZ" would be pronounced "You Zed"). This is likely lost to American English speakers, or at least a case of fridge logic.

* RevolvingDoorBand: A rather colossal number of people have been members over the years.

* LeadDrummer: Daniel Denis is one of the main composers and the only constant member. This is not quite to an IAmTheBand extent, as most of the albums feature works by multiple band members, with ''Uzed'' being a notable exception.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Official sources have been inconsistent about the spelling of the band and their second album. Both would be more correctly written in modern French with acute accents (e.g., Univers Zéro and ''Hérésie), but some official sources (including most of the album covers) leave them off. However, others include them; the ''Crawling Wind'' cover includes the accent on the band name, and the official Bandcamp includes the accents on ''Hérésie'' (but not the band name).

* BlackSpeech[=/=]OminousLatinChanting: The vocals to "La Faulx" sound like an example of this (though they probably aren't ''literally'' in Latin or Mordor's Black Speech), but it's not entirely clear what the vocalist is saying. The lyrics have apparently never been released.

* BlackSpeech[=/=]OminousLatinChanting: The vocals to "La Faulx" sound like an example of this (though they probably aren't in the ''literal'' Latin or Black Speech of Mordor), but it's not entirely clear what the vocalist is saying. The lyrics have apparently never been released.