Themes From William Blake's: The Marriage of Heaven & Hell by Ulver (CD, Feb-2001, 2 Discs, Cargo Music import - UK)

If you are here, more than likely you are a fan of Ulver. This being said, you must also at least have the idea that Ulver is uniquely artistic in their musical approach. 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 that not in a rhythmic spoken word style. This can prove to be sometimes distracting, 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. 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.