TRICK033
ULVER Blood inside
Experimental
Released June 2007
ULVER Blood inside
Experimental
Released June 2007
Click on a link to hear a sample of the track.
01. Dressed in black
02. For the love of God
03. Christmas
04. Blinded by blood
05. It is not sound
06. The truth
07. In the red
08. Your call
09. Operator
Review in Antenna June 2005
Sneak previews of every track on Ulver’s highly anticipated new album, Blood Inside, have been available for a considerable amount of time via Jester Record’s homepage, and I obviously ventured to indulge myself with the delicious tones of every little inch of the nine tracks. This move merely raised my expectations to unreasonable heights.
The careful Antenna reader will know from deciphering my previous reviews of Ulver’s albums that I yearned intolerably for a return to vocals in Ulver’s music, although I allowed myself maximum self-gratification with silenced singings, themes, remixes and official soundtracks. When I first realized that Trickster G. had in fact submitted vocals to the entire set of Blood Inside, my spine shivered with utter rejoice, and the only pitfall would possibly be that the samples had misled yours truly, and the actual album would be astray from what I’d heard.
The overly careful reader might have guessed by now that Blood Inside doesn’t disappoint me in any way, and I nominate it for ‘album of the year’ – alongside a few other contesters who might yield the most outstanding award in a close run. Ulver is, and always has, been synonymous with metamorphosis and the art of setting foot on pristine musical expressions, metaphorically speaking, and Blood Inside is absolute no exception to that rule. I’m deeply fascinated by Ulver’s ability to sum up the best of previous efforts, accumulating their strength and keep on surpassing themselves.
On Blood Inside, Ulver portraits a derivation from the expressive mood which was onset with last year’s MCD A Quick Fix of Melancholy, delineating an increased intensity in the big-band swing as remembered from Svidd Neger, and the band finally deploys full strength in its instrumentation.
Although the terminology ‘progressive music’ has been inflated for more than a decade, the description seems appropriate in terms of defining the newest impulses in Ulver’s music. On several occasions, the attentive listener uncovers elements which herald an affinity for the progressive scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and this might be considered an attack on conventional music, but the watchful reader will detect that the conventional characteristics are merely fragments of Ulver’s omnipotent gestures.
Ulver is a perpetual chameleon, hence the difficulty in comparing their albums with each others, although the devoted fan would presumably favour some above others…, and I’m no exception. I would possibly hail Perdition City and Themes from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell as the zenith of the Ulver’s career, but Blood Inside has already assumed a position terribly close to those two albums.
6/6 points.
By Lars Lolk
01. Dressed in black
02. For the love of God
03. Christmas
04. Blinded by blood
05. It is not sound
06. The truth
07. In the red
08. Your call
09. Operator
Review in Antenna June 2005
Sneak previews of every track on Ulver’s highly anticipated new album, Blood Inside, have been available for a considerable amount of time via Jester Record’s homepage, and I obviously ventured to indulge myself with the delicious tones of every little inch of the nine tracks. This move merely raised my expectations to unreasonable heights.
The careful Antenna reader will know from deciphering my previous reviews of Ulver’s albums that I yearned intolerably for a return to vocals in Ulver’s music, although I allowed myself maximum self-gratification with silenced singings, themes, remixes and official soundtracks. When I first realized that Trickster G. had in fact submitted vocals to the entire set of Blood Inside, my spine shivered with utter rejoice, and the only pitfall would possibly be that the samples had misled yours truly, and the actual album would be astray from what I’d heard.
The overly careful reader might have guessed by now that Blood Inside doesn’t disappoint me in any way, and I nominate it for ‘album of the year’ – alongside a few other contesters who might yield the most outstanding award in a close run. Ulver is, and always has, been synonymous with metamorphosis and the art of setting foot on pristine musical expressions, metaphorically speaking, and Blood Inside is absolute no exception to that rule. I’m deeply fascinated by Ulver’s ability to sum up the best of previous efforts, accumulating their strength and keep on surpassing themselves.
On Blood Inside, Ulver portraits a derivation from the expressive mood which was onset with last year’s MCD A Quick Fix of Melancholy, delineating an increased intensity in the big-band swing as remembered from Svidd Neger, and the band finally deploys full strength in its instrumentation.
Although the terminology ‘progressive music’ has been inflated for more than a decade, the description seems appropriate in terms of defining the newest impulses in Ulver’s music. On several occasions, the attentive listener uncovers elements which herald an affinity for the progressive scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and this might be considered an attack on conventional music, but the watchful reader will detect that the conventional characteristics are merely fragments of Ulver’s omnipotent gestures.
Ulver is a perpetual chameleon, hence the difficulty in comparing their albums with each others, although the devoted fan would presumably favour some above others…, and I’m no exception. I would possibly hail Perdition City and Themes from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell as the zenith of the Ulver’s career, but Blood Inside has already assumed a position terribly close to those two albums.
6/6 points.
By Lars Lolk