01	Dressed In Black						07:06
	02	For The Love Of God						04:11
	03	Christmas						06:15
	04	Blinded By Blood						06:22
	05	It Is Not Sound						04:37
	06	The Truth						04:01
	07	In The Red						03:30
	08	Your Call						06:07
	09	Operator						03:38

Trickster G. (Kristoffer Rygg aka Garm) : Vocals (ex-Arcturus (Nor), ex-Borknagar, Head Control System)
Tore Ylwizaker : Programming
Jorn H. Svaeren : Drums

Guests:

BOSSE - guitar solo on For The Love of God.
CZRAL - drums on Operator. Courtesy Snapper Music and Tyrant Syndicate.
JEFF GAUTHIER - violin on Your Call. Courtesy Cryptogrammophone Records.
HAVARD JORGENSEN - guitar on Dressed in Black, For the Love of God and Your
Call.
MIKE KENEALLY - guitar on Christmas, solo on Operator. Courtesy Exowax
Recordings.
ANDREAS MJOS - vibraphone on Blinded by Blood and In the Red. Courtesy Ninja
Tune Records.
MAJA S. K. RATKJE - choir on Your Call. Courtesy Rune Grammofon.
KNUT AALEFJAER - drums and percussion on For the Love of God, Christmas and
Operator.

Mastered by AUDUN STRYPE January 2005.
Cover by TRINE PAULSEN and KIM SOLVE.

It Is Not Sound video by AKFF! January 2005.
It Is Not Sound coda by BACH.
Christmas words by the gnostic PESSOA.
Anything else ? It ULVER is.



Just when you thought they couldnt get any better - 97%
Written by NJMetalMeister on May 11th, 2005

It indeed gets better. This album is astounding, and its more musically coherant than the last few ulver releases. The vocals on this album are flat out killer, probably garm's best work. But enough of my ramblings, onto the review:

Track 1: Dressed in Black. Starts out with two tones being repeated over a few times, and in typical ulver fashion, it builds up into the actual song by layering other sounds over it, and particularly noteworthy is the piano layered on top of it. The layering of garm's vocals in this song are subtle, yet eerie, and all out brilliant. Note the guitar hidden in there around the 4 minute mark, it is particularly nice to hear some more traditional instruments on this album. The other part of this song worth mentioning is the piano playing starting at around 5:50, which leads nicely into the ambient outro. 10/10

Track 2: For the Love of God. No, this isnt the steve vai song (haha) but there is a guitar solo very present in this song nonetheless, which is very nice. Garm hits a lot of high notes in this song, also nice. The song tends to be mostly dominated by drums and bass (even though many other instruments are present), creating a great atmosphere. I do find the overuse of the word Fuck in this song amusing, i really dont know why, but it makes me smirk a bit. This is my least favorite song on the album, and it's still a great tune, so that really tells you what kind of an album it is. 9/10.

Track 3: Christmas. Starts off with bells and chimes, like just about every christmas song ever written, so it is not just a clever name. This song has my favorite vocal lines in the song (not lyrics but actual musical lines). The bells/synths combine very nicely in this song. About halfway through the song it gets much much darker in feel, and almost feels like a turn around for the way the album started, at least to me. However the beauty of Ulver releases is that everyone interprets them differently, so you might find it differently than i do, and that is fine. As it started, it ends on chimes. 10/10

Track 4: Blinded by Blood. Very ambeint and dark sounding song. It reminds me a bit of the Quick Fix of Melancholy EP. There are some very dissonant sounds hidden in the background of this song, which really help the ambience out a lot in this particular tune. Since this song is mostly ambient, there is not much I can really say about it other than it is an extremly chill song. 10/10

Track 5: It is not Sound. This is tied as my favorite song off the album along with In the Red. It leads in from Blinded by Blood very nicely, and brings back more of a song structure and less ambience (i mean to an extent, ulver is very much about ambience and atmosphere as we all know). This song is probably the heaviest on the album, and it actually hints at the fact that Ulver was in fact once a metal band (although to say this song is metal by anymeans would be a farse and a half). The standout part in this song that everyone is going to mention is the Bach piece towards the end. Now, personally, I enjoy bach a lot, so to hear one of my favorite bands incorporate bach, tastefully, into electronic music, is like pleasure overload for me. 10/10

Track 6: The Truth. The truth about this song, is that it is my second least favorite on the album, but that could also be because it is sandwiched between what i feel are the best two off the album. Particularly noteworthy in this song is the percussion line, which for some reason reminds me of aphex twin to an extent. Perhaps because it does a lot more than the average ulver drumline, even if it doesnt go throughout the entire song. The use of guitars here in this song are also quite nice, but not as good as the use of them in For the Love of God for example. The vocal lines post the 3:05 mark sound very Mike Patton inspired, which is grand. 9/10

Track 7: In the Red. Here we go, my other favorite from the album, and while it is a short one compared to the rest of the album (only 3:30 long), it is particularly noticable for 2 reasons: the drumming sounds jazz inspired, and the crazy saxophone part towards the end. This song, for some reason reminds me of something you would hear in a well made batman movie, and i really dont know why, of course except for the end which sounds like something out of a 1930s gangster movie. I'll quit rambling about this song though and let you hear it for yourself. 10/10

Track 8: Your Call. This one is very contrasting to In the Red which is rather intense and off the wall at times. It starts out completely ambient, and continues in suit until the vocals come in at around 2 minutes. Although, the lack of drums keeps it very ambient sounding (and the fact that there arent many actual musical notes but just a collection of tones and noises circulating in the background [and the phone ringing hidden in there really messed me up until i realzed it was in the song and my phone wasnt actually ringing]). This song stays this way throughout the duration, and once again remains a very relaxed song, which is a nice contrast and break from what ensued during In The Red. 9/10

Track 9: Operator. Very similar in style to In the Red, although not quite as good in my opinion (but it is close). The overall tone of this song reminds me a bit of something you would hear Ihsahn involved with. If you changed the music in the back during the beginning to very distorted guitars and tremolo picking, it could easily fit in on an Emperor album. More guitars surface in this song, but once again are subtle. The drumming here is probably the most coherant on the album, which sound like just a standard drumline as opposed to having that overall electronic feel to them. The quick runs on the percussive organ (cant recall the name of the actual instrument at the moment because im drawing a huge blank) are quite cool. This is probably the most straightfoward song on the album. Still, good stuff. 10/10

In summation, I think i would safely say this is the best Ulver album to date, and some of Garm's finest vocal work. Get this album as soon as you can, you will not regret it.



Instruments once again... - 92%
Written by TheStormIRide on January 20th, 2006

The new album from shapeshifting wolves, otherwise known as Ulver, had much hype building around it. Most of the time, I ignore the hype and wait for the release, but I must say I was excited to hear Ulver use live instruments once again. Now, first off I will say I'm currently a fan of Ulver's entire back catalogue. The last time Ulver used live instruments so thoroughly was Themes. That being said, after listening to the later albums, I was not expecting a metal album, I was expecting ambient soundscapes with guitar and live drums. And Garm singing again?
The album really shows best when seen in it's complete form. The hospital like images of the booklet really give the audience a feel of what they're going for. The music sounds much like a demented hospital.
The guitars really help set the tone, very melancholic, while still having a sense of urgency. Garm's vocals are spot on perfection, but could you expect any less? This Ulver album will NOT appeal to all metal fans, but I urge the open minded to check it out. It is definitely an enjoyable listen. Kudos to Ulver for once again playing by their own rules.


Wow, totally unexpected - 90%
Written by danyates on October 13th, 2005

If you know anything about Ulver, you would know that they were a black metal band in the 90s. Then after the suicide of their guitarist, they started making electronica albums, such as Perdition City, and this album, Blood Inside.

First of all, I should tell you I bought this album thinking it was black metal. If I had known that it was electronica/industrial-ish, I would have never bought it, or even downloaded it.

When I say "electronica," your first thought it probably "Oh wow, electronica. Bleep boop beep bleep boop."

Well, in this case, Blood Inside is not random bleeps. It is an actual well constructed album, which is very musical, and sometimes very melodic. Songs like "Blinded by Blood" would be a good example of a song that is not too chaotic and is actually pretty mellow. There are some chaotic moments, though, such as the intro to "Your Call"

I would probably say my favorite songs on here are "It is not Sound" or "For the Love of God," which actually includes a guitar solo. Nothing too flashy, but it fits the music perfectly, and it makes a great addition to the song.

And I can't believe I haven't touched on the vocals yet. Garm's vocals are EXCELLENT. I cannot stress that word enough. It is all clean vocals, and sounds like Mikael Akerfeldt (from Opeth) at times.

This album did take a lot of listening to get into, though. At first, I was thinking, "Uh, aren't they black metal?" I listened somemore (only because some songs were extremely catchy and I liked them a bit), and I found the beauty of this album.

It seems odd; me suggesting electronica to you, but you won't regret listening to this album. It will be a musical pleasure for people who have an open mind, and are willing to listen to new genres.

I rate this album 90/100.


For the record... - 98%
Written by michinoku on May 25th, 2005

I would venture to call my anticipation for this album unsurpassed by almost any other release by any other band in history, excepting perhaps the agonizing wait us Sigh enthusiasts have before Gallows Gallery drops. The Quick Fix EP left us with 20 minutes of brilliantly-developed promise and the hint at perhaps the greatest incarnation of electronic Ulver yet, but the band's contribution to the Uno soundtrack was out-of-place amongst several Norwegian hip-hop artists, and underdeveloped to boot, nowhere near as melodically bound as their previous soundtracks - so a lot was riding on Blood Inside to prove that the band was going to continue what has been a thoroughly enjoyable learning experience to their dedicated fans, who I am among.
So consider it my greatest pleasure to say that they fucking did it - all but the most abstract ambient pretentions of their electronic career has been retained and refined into nine tracks of epic, beautifully arranged music that pushes Ulver's neo-noir ambitions to the fullest; there's a lot of soul behind the pitch-perfect constructions that these songs are made of, both in Garm's heavily-overdubbed vocals that make good use of his range as a singer, and in some of the live performances both guest and non that make up the instrumentation on this record.
So what makes up this giant glowing ball of brilliance? There's a lot of lush, full orchestration on some tracks, a lot of loose, reverb-heavy passages with a lot of slowly formed, but extremely rewarding, melodies, great use of vintage keyboards like the Hammond Organ (with full, gritty leslie sound), analog-synth work(wendy carlos-like moog work on the back in It is Not Sound) and melancholy electric pianos anchoring certain other tracks. In addition, there is a good mix of live drumming (possibly on some V-drum kits like in Perdition City), some loops and programmed drumming (see the intense reverse-breakbeat jazz of In the Red), and some great contributed guitar solos that are genuinely in keeping with the feel of Ulver's music (some even sounding vaguely like slowed-down, softer interpolations of the type of sonic exploration Ulver's guitar solos were like on Nattens Madrigal, in addition to some wonderful heavier passages that aren't metal by nature but at heart, with the carefully placed dissonance and aggression involved on all levels of the music.
It is true that the album has some moments that are not quite as well developed as others - as a whole, I would say that Operator has no place as the album closer and feels a bit less focused with the sounds tried, in addition, I would bite my tongue and suggest that the opener Dressed in Black goes on for a wee bit too long at its ending, but other than those minor complaints this album is about as strong as anything the band has put out, and is an early contender for album of the decade. Check out the surrealist/trip-fest music video they've got for It is not Sound online somewhere, if you wish to add to the overall enjoyment by seeing various members of the band moving about in funny little cartoon outfits and Garm dressed as the pope and shaking about furiously. quite worthwhile.