Ulver: Blood Inside

Ulver: Blood Inside (The End)

Before splicing and heavy sampling became the norm in electronic music, Ulver, the black metal bastards of Norway, had their cut and paste style perfected and distributed to a limited market. Blood Inside continues on with the Peridition City (Trick) tradition, where undulating and pulsating digital mumbo jumbo combine with distant, heavily tweaked vocals and cryptic neo-folk elements that nonetheless serve as a packaged if not a cohesive whole. The only real indication of their past flirtation with black metal may be the eerie tone and characteristic lyrical markers referring to dead bodies, the devil and mythology, which point to their darkened forest of Norway past. Like many Ulver "songs" these nine tracks are loose structurally and make little sense apart from the album in entirety. While it takes an avid fan to enjoy a record so jam packed with avante concepts and musical outreaches, those fans will be rewarded with the majesty of experimentation. Most modern music claims to marry genres to create novel prototypes, however only a few select bands like Ulver truly represent this trend–they have been and still are ahead of the game in that respect. If you are not emotionally or mental sound it is recommended that you stay away from this album. Caution: Ulver is unprecedented and unpredictable; Blood Inside may induce fear of the unknown.