BLOOD INSIDE

Though by far not everything's ULVER had produced in their long developmental career is appealing to me I've to say that I consider them the most interesting, always progressing and as well progressive (in the literal sense) band of the Norwegian black metal scene. Here we have their latest product "Blood Inside" which is described by some people just as a mess, a chaos or plain noise whereas others call it a real gritty innovative modern piece of art. Maybe both aspects are true in some way but nevertheless this album appeals more to me than their previous works which were too much dominated by ambient electronic music for my taste. And at least to my ears it does not sound as noisy as some other outputs in the experimental metal genre by artists like FANTOMAS or DEVIN TOWNSEND for example. In ULVER's long catalogue there were only few complete failures if any at all (though "Nattens" was one IMHO) and which album has to be called their best one is just a matter of taste, whether one prefers electronic, folk or heavy metal music. I'm preferring the latter two genres I've to say though there isn't any obvious folk influence present on "Blood Inside" nor can it be called really metal despite its heaviness since there aren't almost any guitars. Anyway this album does it somehow for me and it's certainly a quite unique and innovative work within the genre of modern progressive music. I guess it might not appeal to all folks,especially the ones being mainly stuck in the conventional prog but it should appeal to any open-minded prog fan.