Ulver Album: “Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven & Hell”

My first thoughts upon listening to this album were: "this sucks, Bergtatt was 1000 times better. I buy albums to listen to music not hear a poetry reading..." 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.

I will do my best to describe this. First of all, the songs don't really have names, they just call them "Plate 1" through "Plate 27" even though there's only 19 tracks. The way they name tracks on this CD is the most confusing ever. No, those names on the back aren't the song titles, although they are part of some of them. And the songs aren't just the "plate numbers" either. Rather, the songs are the red text in the lyrics, like "Voice of the Devil Plate 4" and "Proverbs of Hell Plates 7-10". As you can see more than one "plate" is in a track sometimes. ANYWAYS...

There are certainly a LOT of lyrics, based on themes from William Blake's "The Marraige of Heaven and Hell," obviously. They are very interesting. Try to read them while listening, at least on a few songs. Sometimes it's hard to find where they are because you have no idea what track number is which song. Or you might get a headache because they're all in capital letters in huge blocks of text. I don't understand the lyrics that well but I think they are contradicting the bible or whatever, and some are quite thought-provoking.

There are so many genre's mixed, that they are all mixed together within one song, right on top of each other. For instance, Track 4 has a very peaceful, catchy acoustic guitar tune with garm's vocals and some female vocals (just talking) with a semi-electronic beat, then at the end it suddenly does a backflip into this wild Industrial/Metal/Electronic instrumental. It is easily one of my favorites.

There are so many kinds of vocals. Several songs are mainly carried by vocals with a nice tune in the background, usually a dark acoustic tune with a pulsing electronic beat sometimes. There are the many voices of Garm and there are some female vocalists. Sometimes there is just talking, sometimes it is whispering, sometimes normal singing, sometimes more harsh singing, sometimes a mix between talking and singing, sometimes electronically distorted or echoed vocals.

The first track is a nice industrial/metal feeling song kicked off with deep dark vocals and industrialized percussion. one of the best ones. Track 2 is atmospheric distorted guitars with female singing ending up in a cloud of ambience. Track 6 is a monsterous, agressive, experimental song constantly being mangled and twisted around.

Track 7 is easily my absolute favorite. It is very epic, but in a way you never would have thought you would describe as epic. What makes it is the progression and the amazing vocal melodies. It is somewhat aggressive but you can hardly say anything on this album is "heavy." It starts off quietly with a pulsing beat and soft mechanic voice for a while, then suddenly flips around into the main song with a bunch of industrial sounds. The "Chorus" it's building up to is the best part. I feel on top of the world when this song is playing. Garm's vocal melodies just totally make the song enjoyable, it's just the tone of his voice or the style of the singing -- I really can't explain it. But this song isn't just based on vocals, of course, the parts where he is talking are very upbeat and you will not be able to stop tapping your fingers. That's the best way I can describe it, I'm sure you know this isn't actually catchy pop music.

Throughout the rest of the first disc you'll find more experimental instrumentals and songs with strange mixtures or maybe similar to what I described already. and a LOT of lyrics. There are a lot of ambiant parts too that seem to stop songs when they don't seem to stop and interrupt them with a breath of quiet ambience.

Now for disc 2. I have recently got into Disc 2 a lot more. Before, I usually didn't even play it because my first few impressions weren't very good. Boy was that a mistake. Don't make that mistake. There are only 6 songs, and only the first one is kinda long, 11 minutes. The first 3 or so minutes are kind of monotonous, then Garm starts singing better and the background music gets more interesting and the song really gets some nice rhythm patterns and more shifting changes.

Track 2 is very short but has one of the coolest melodies on the cd. I really don't know how to explain it much more than that. I picture being in some kind of futuristic top-secret facility. Actually, this sounds more like the style of Silencing the Singing, quite ambient but musical. Track 3 and 4 are pretty good but i'm not gonna go in depth with them.

Track 5 is very ambient and probably the most interesting song on disc 2. If you have concentration you will notice so many different things happening in this song and could invision a million different things.

The last song has a really good pulsating beat. It adds some really interesting sounds then a really really cool guitar riff that repeats, and another guitar riff that is rediculously fast and crazy. The vocals here sound like he's some huge strong hulk guy directing an army. Actually, this is probably the most bizarre song on the entire album now that I think of it. Great way to end this masterpiece. It says it's 26 minutes but that's just to fool you, the music lasts only about 5 minutes and there's a very short, pointless bonus thing at the end.

On first listen, this cd will probably leave you in mass confusion. While you are listening the first time you will have no idea what will happen next. The songs don't really seem coherent but it is very fun because there is such a crazy mix of things happening one after another. Don't pass it up and give it a chance. It takes a long time to get used to because it's something you've heard nothing like before. Ulver is just so brilliant.

I will do my best to describe this. First of all, the songs don't really have names, they just call them "Plate 1" through "Plate 27" even though there's only 19 tracks. Maybe the titles on the back are the songs and they spread across several tracks even though 5 of 9 of them have the same name. It's kind of got me confused but that's not important.

There are certainly a LOT of lyrics, based on themes from William Blake's "The Marraige of Heaven and Hell," obviously. They are very interesting. Try to read them while listening, at least on a few songs. Sometimes it's hard to find where they are because the labels just put a lot together such as "Plates 7-10" so I won't name songs, i'll just name tracks. Or you might get a headache because they're all in capital letters in huge blocks of text.

There are so many genre's mixed, that they are all mixed together within one song, right on top of each other. For instance, Track 4 has a very peaceful acoustic guitar tune with garm's vocals and some female vocals (just talking) with a semi-electronic beat, then at the end it suddenly does a backflip into this wild Industrial/Metal/Electronic instrumental. It is easily one of my favorites.

There are so many kinds of vocals. Several songs are mainly carried by vocals with a nice tune in the background, usually a dark acoustic tune with a pulsing electronic beat. There are the many voices of Garm and there are some female vocalists. Sometimes there is just talking, sometimes it is whispering, sometimes normal singing, sometimes more harsh singing, sometimes a mix between talking and singing, sometimes electronically distorted or echoed vocals.

The first track is a nice industrial/metal feeling song kicked off with deep dark vocals and industrialized percussion. one of the best ones. Track 2 is atmospheric distorted guitars with female singing ending up in a cloud of ambience. Track 6 is a monsterous, agressive, experimental song constantly being mangled and twisted around.

Track 7 is easily my absolute favorite. It is very epic, but in a way you never would have thought you would describe as "epic." What makes it is the progression and the amazing vocal melodies. It is somewhat aggressive but you can hardly say anything on this album is "heavy." It starts off quietly with a pulsing beat and soft mechanic voice for a while, then suddenly flips around into the main song with a bunch of industrial sounds. The "Chorus" it's building up to is the best part. I feel on top of the world when this song is playing.

Throughout the rest of this you'll find more experimental instrumentals and songs with strange mixtures or maybe similar to what I described already. There are a lot of ambiant parts too that seem to stop songs when they don't seem to stop and interrupt them with a breath of quiet ambience.

On first listen, this cd will probably leave you in mass confusion. While you are listening the first time you will have no idea what will happen next. The songs don't really seem coherent but it is very fun because there is such a crazy mix of things happening one after another. Don't pass it up and give it a chance. It takes a long time to get used to because it's something you've heard nothing like before.

This band delivers maybe the most interresting cd of the '90. They started as a Norwegian black metal band, but after finishing their trilogy to celibrate the Norwegian nature and culture (cd's Bergtatt, Kveldssanger and Nattens Madrigal) they started doing something really different; something they wanted to do. The mastermind of this band (Garm, Trickster G) was already making bizarre avantgarde rock with superband Arcturus (with members of Mayhem and Borknagar), and now he is heading to a direction even further towards bizarre, experimental and avantgarde music. This 2-cd delivers pop, rock and metal, elector, industrial, drum 'n bass, acoustic elements, gothic and atmosphere- a lot of atmosphere! Nobody has ever made something likt this: making bizarre rock mixes with drum ;n bass-rhythms for instance. The songs are exceptional and extremely good. garm is one of the best singers coming from the metalscene. He uses his dark, deep and bizarre voice to make this music even more special. But what makes this cd and band even more interresting, is that they've used the great work of British poet/ alchemist William Blake -The marriage of Heaven and Hell- as lyrics for their fantastic musical soundscapes. The music fits the lyrics perfectly, for Blake's work was dark, bizarre, a little occult and symbolic. Reading the "lyrics" while listening to the magnificent music is highly recommended! Then you will capture the atmosphere of thsi band even more. For me this is one of the most interresting cd's ever, for it gives us dark atmospheres, bizarre music, avantgarde-sounds, weird progressive stuff and lots more...

Ulver was a very primative black metal band in the early days. and this release is not so much a divorce from their roots per se,but a total transformation.

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