A Strange Trip
William Blake, like most other poets, were able to see past the Christian/Catholic assault on what was supposed to be an allegory of creation. To really understand this release, you must forget that the Bible is not the word of God. "Western" man is unable to comprehend the fact that the Bible was SUPPOSED to be Myth. Poets understood this, as they dealt with it all the time. That's all I'll say on that. Read some Gnostic gospels and you'll see. . .
The music is brilliant. Mixing metal, acoustic passages, techno with spoken word and singing. Some people we upset about the "spoken word" parts. I think it really lends to the mood. Basically it is the entire poem "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" used as lyics and Ulver put music to it. And as usual they went over most people's heads. Don't think of this as an album. . . think of it as an expierence (sorta like Pain of Salvation's "BE"). Do this, and a whole world opens up to the senses.
Amazing stuff.
Experimental music with a poetic flavor
This being said, you must also at least have the idea that Ulver is uniquely artistic in their musical approach. If you are here, more than likely you are a fan of Ulver. From their early days, starting with 3 recordings each featuring extremely melodic black metal with tinges of neo-classical stylings with Bergtatt, to an extreme deviation of ultra low-fi kvlt true black metal with minimal melody with Nattens Madrigal, to the ultimate contrast of Norse folk-based classical with Kveldssanger, Ulver proved to be progressive geniuses even in the paradigm of Black metal. Then with Perdition City they had already abandoned black metal completely and gone for a darkly semi-ambient electronic style for a unique twist. Blood Inside is probably the best representation of their metamorphoses, turning their slightly more quiet presentation the other way around for a more up-front sound. My main point here is illustrating how incredibly different Ulver can be with each album, and I didn't even cover their movie soundtracks!
"Themes From William Blake's 'The Marriage Of Heaven and Hell'" is, in my humble opinion, the most difficult to digest. This is not being stated in a negative manner of course, hence my 4/5 rating. The concept of this double disc is that all of the lyrics are poetry being artistically sung/spoken over original music. The main problem here in getting to know this albums genius is that it is unfortunately easy to focus less on the music and more on the poetry, which is more often than not in a rhythmic spoken word style. This can prove to be sometimes distracting from the music, but ONLY if you let it! If you can focus less on the vocals and really absorb the music in the background you will hear some of the most inventive pieces of music to ever accompany such beauteous poetry.
If this is your first Ulver cd, be prepared to hear something different each track. The first disc starts out with a hauntingly dark industrial feel with somewhat of a marching quality that eventually segues to a rock feel. It is a great example of how Ulver takes guitars, keyboards, electronic/acoustic drums, various vocal styles and layers them in such a genius manner. Female vocals pop in every now and then for a nice change of pace to add some nice layering. Ambient soundscapes give an ominous feel here and there, and they even throw in some heavy rock slightly metal tinges in there. They occasionally revisit their folkish classical moods, but they do it in a way in which they bring those styles into contact with the new ones. And trust me, they do it with such seamless fluidity that fans of anything 'progressive' will look at their Tool, Dream Theater, and Yes cds and will be forced to redifine the definition of anything 'prog'. . . ESPECIALLY those who are fans of Ulver's old school black metal style as well as the new explorations.
What I like about this cd is you can tell that Ulver is NOT afraid to explore and experiment with whatever they wish, however they want to. This is an excellent cd. If you are looking for a general musical theme for this album, I don't think I could give one. Just check it out and see for yourself the true creative force that is Ulver.
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Darkly Different
and this release is not so much a divorce from their roots per se,but a total transformation. Ulver was a very primative black metal band in the early days.
Over the course of this two disc set, the listener is treated to an audial telling of William Blake's "Marriage Of Heaven and Hell" plate by plate in a nearly electronica type formay, I won't do a track by track review, just buy it,you'll thank me later.
Wow, this may be the greatest album ever...
Oh yeah, and because it's based on a poem, there's NO CHORUS on the entire album. This album is based on a kick-awesome poem, which you would think would be enough on its own, but they kick things up a notch by adding some kick-awesome music to the mix. This album is boss and I <3 Ulver.
Improves with repeated listens
I buy albums to listen to music not hear a poetry reading. My first thoughts upon listening to this album were: "this sucks, Bergtatt was 1000 times better. . . " I was ready to write this off as a dissapointing failure but then decided, what the hell, might as well listen to it again, this time with the lyric booklet. It all kinda started to make sense then, obviously the poem is central to the album, a key fact I neglected before. Reading the lyrics along with the album didn't automatically put this at the top of my favorite albums, but it did make me appreciate the expierience much more. Everyone else seems to have covered the good aspects of this album so I'll cover what wasn't so good about it. Problem 1: Garm is one of the best vocalists I've ever heard, and there lies the problem. Most of the time on this album all he does is talk, not sing. Problem 2: The music gets boring, I see what they're trying to do but they could've been a little less stoic about it. Those are the two major issues I have with this album. As long as your not expecting a masterpiece on the scale of their earlier albums and don't mind drawn out (what some would think of as boring) compositions than this album is for you.
You can see a complete list of all Ulver discography, or go back to the Ulver tabs
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