Main menu
Fretplay home Submit tabs

Ulver
Ulver tabs Ulver discography

Channels
Guitar channel Bass channel Guitar videos Reviews

Message Forum
Guitar forum Bass forum Bands and artists Promote your band Recent discussions All categories

Fretplay.com

Ulver guitar tabs

CD reviews

Blood Inside

Ulver - Blood Inside Audio CD

A fair review of the Ulver "Blood Inside" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Ulver reviews here, or go back to the Ulver tabs.

Band: Ulver
Title: Blood Inside
Rating:

Release Date: 2005-07-12
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Dressed in black 2: For the love of God 3: Christmas 4: Blinded by blood 5: It is not sound 6: The truth 7: In the red 8: Your call 9: Operator

This is one to know.
I was expecting this album to be good, but it's better than good. Amazing music! Seriously dark and imaginative lyrics that combine psychedelic stoner metal with norweigian folk and gothic gloom and doom. . . . it's magical! Every song is pwerful, even the album art is unique and occultish, all in all. . . one of the best albums you'll find. Ulver is a well kept secret amongst passionate music collectors.

Ulvertronic
Distilling the sound used to such effect on _Perdition City_, _Blood Inside_ sees Ulver completely, spectacularly break free of metal roots and create something almost without peer in modern music. Despite the fact that Ulver displayed a notable penchant for flagrant genre hopping right from the get go, with the wildly oscillating _Bergtatt_, the stripped back acoustic folk of _Kvelldsanger_ and, most jarringly, the ear melting opening of hells gates on _Nattens Madrigal_, this is most likely where the rule book went out of the window and their apotheosis as experimental music titans was complete.
The nine songs presented here are dense, lush and intricately composed, neatly shunning predictability but retaining accessibility thanks to the gorgeously, blessedly clean vocals and their lilting, modern delivery. The music has an electronic base but integrates elements of jazz (slightly), rock (blistering rhythms and one guitar solo), atmosphere and ambience, and prog (insane out of place cod-classical keyboard solo, numerous other touches). the attention to detail is stunning and the lack of conventional structure actually adds to the strength of the songs: despite the uniform sound and dense production, the tracks are actually quite disparate, and the lack of predictability makes hearing each one like unwrapping another present.
Specifically, 'Dressed in Black' is a low key, deceptively melodic opener, showing off the full production and warped beats, especially about 3/4 of the way through when it opens up into a chaotic percussive section. 'For the Love of God' is a gem, and unclassifiable slice of eerire keyboard, surprisingly upbeat tones and vocals, and an unexpected guitar solo. Something about it evokes movement (perhaps on a train?). 'Christmas' is basically astounding, mixing classical samples with driving beats, an aggressive, upbeat style and heart wilitng crescendos later on (those wordless vocal harmonies!). The song is practically danceable, for crying out loud! 'Blinded by Blood' is my favourite, an epic textural journey, ornate in delivery, featuring choral parts and weird backwashing effects, creepy melodies and an atmosphere that reminds me of quiet church or crypt. The melody and delivery of the male vocals reminds me of Mike Patton, but overall I've never heard anything so beautiful. You get the picture then, although I should briefly single out 'Operator' which is an utterly insane journey through a speedy, almost rocking proggish dance-athon (???).
Ok, as I've subtly hinted at above then, I really like this album. I do believe it has a lot going for it. The songwriting is uniformly strong, the production a crystalline, technical wonder. The vocals are good and really add a lot to the music. The best feature though is that, despite the admittedly ambitious reach and scope of the record, every arow finds its target. That is, each miniature experiment works out well, even with the occasional bizzare out of place interludes, which work well in the overall scheme thanks to their jarring quality. One shouldn't really expect a band to be able to branch out in so many different directions at once so succsessfully, so Ulvers achievement here should not be taken lightly. The vague overall concept, which seems to be about hospital fear or Christianity (or both. . . I mean, sanity is out of the window by this stage) helps as well, keeping everything together without really intruding on matters. I'll wrap up now then, but this album is an experimental, accessible, delicate and delicious marvel, and I hope this review outlines why, to some extent. One thing is for sure: I used a lot of parentheses, for some reason.

Absolutely fantastic
Only a relatively small percentage of these have been enduringly satisfying. For 25 years, I've selectively purchased and become familiar with hundreds(or thousand+ ?)of albums. Ulver's Blood Inside astonishes me because I haven't become bored of it! It's still on my iPod Shuffle and I still relish it in its entirety after more than 100 hearings while I exercise.
Absolutely great!.

Amazing!
From the opening synths on the first track you immediately know something unusual is fixing to happen. This is the album that introduced me to this great band, and I can honestly say that I have never been more pleased with a purchase in my life!

What we have here is an amazingly unique fusion of electronica-prog. Ulver successfully conqours amazing feats on 'Blood Inside'. Everything from electronic ambience, electronic classical, to absolutely terrifying sounds of hellish destruction is abundant in this masterpiece. Ulver's keen ear to dynamics is very rare to our lacking world of music. The amount of artistic expression and emotion that drenches this album is so completely stunning that I have a hard time picturing this band as a simple black-metal band. This is one of those albums that you cannot listen to one song, but you have to experience the album in its entireity.

To any music fan that enjoys an artistic, and avant-garde masterpiece, I strongly urge you to purchase this. Buy a bottle of wine, turn the lights of, light a candle, put 'Blood Inside' in your stereo and turn it up. I promise you will not regret this. I will soon buy the rest of Ulver's albums, even the black metal ones, because I am absoluely sure that a band with this magnitude of talent can do no wrong. .

The Next Step Of Ulver
Musically this is something of a return to a band format, encompassing the electronic style they have perfected with releases such as "Perdition City" and "Lyckantropen Themes", but introducing some more traditional instruments and song writing. After a host of short and sweet electronic EP's, Ulver created one of their most enthralling works with 2005's "Blood Inside". While this may put off some of the exclusively electronic fans, I believe this is an excellent step forward and a great new evolution for the band.

The album is visually and thematically very interesting. The white and red cover art continues the mysterious and minimalist art the band usually opts for, this time giving a somewhat hospital and health vibe. And this is certainly a major theme to the album, with the word blood cropping up in both the album's title and in the song "Blinded By Blood", and hinted at with "In The Red". Promo pics of the band on their website (note that there are no band photos in the glossy and minimalist liner notes, another constant aspect to the enigmatic Ulver styling) shows the band dressed up in surgical attire holding bloody knives.

So the vibes are definitely bloody, hospitalised and surgical ones, but that isn't the only theme to the lyrics. There is a lot of mention of God, songs such as "For The Love of God" combine this with the blood theme - "going down faster than the light / blood of the God word spoken in tongues / that we see the end". In the song "Christmas" more references to God are made - "A God is born and others die. . . A new God is a word - or the mere sound / don't seek and don't trust, for all is mystery". To me, such lyrics are condemning the glorification or God, giving a general theme that beliefs are dangerous, and God cannot stop atrocities and death. And this is where I believe the hospital theme links in, emphasised by the song "In The Red" which parallels the role of a hospital to God, moving from birth - "Out of nature / something bloody / a body" - to the hospital - "In need of help / a heart / taken away for a moment / ambulance / hospital doors open / a great white". This seems to be pinnacle of the themes presented, the combination and conflict between nature (God) and man (the hospital). Of course I may be way off here, but this is my interpretation of an interesting and intriguing theme.

As for the music, well it's hard to really explain properly, due to its diverse nature. There are those lovely atmospheric and moody overtones that Ulver execute so perfectly, but there are also more traditional instruments playing a larger role than I expected. The songs also follow a more traditional structuring, with some having distinct verse and chorus patterns. This does not mean the album is accessible, or "pop", or "selling-out". This is still strictly Ulver - dark, brooding, atmospheric, melodic and extremely addictive. My personal favorites would have to be "Christmas" which has a lovely winter feel to it and some of Garm's best vocals on the album. "It Is Not Sound" which displays perfectly the new style fusing the electronic and traditional elements perfectly, and the very moody "Your Call" which is one of Ulver's most unsettling and glorious songs to date.

A fan of Ulver's electronic works should not be disappointed here. Yes, the band has changed their sound a little, but this shouldn't be a surprise, after all, this is the same band that created one of the heaviest and downright ferocious black metal albums ever made ("Nattens Madrigal"). For new fans of the band, I think this would be a very nice place to start, as it encompasses everything I love about their music.
.

You can see a complete list of all Ulver discography, or go back to the Ulver tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.