*** Welcome to piglix ***

Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
UlverThemesfromWilliamBlake.jpg
Slipcase cover
Studio album by Ulver
Released December 17, 1998 (1998-12-17)
Genre Experimental, avant-garde metal
Length 101:09
Label Jester
Ulver chronology
The Trilogie - Three Journeyes Through the Norwegian Netherworlde
(1997)The Trilogie - Three Journeyes Through the Norwegian Netherworlde1997
Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
(1998)
Metamorphosis
(1999)Metamorphosis1999
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 2.5/5 stars link
Sputnikmusic 4/5 stars link

Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is the fourth studio album by Norwegian experimental collective Ulver. Produced with Kristoffer Rygg, together with Knut Magne Valle and Tore Ylwizaker, it was issued on December 17, 1998 via Jester Records. It is a musical setting of William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The album blended electronics, industrial music elements, progressive metal and avant-garde rock, adding ambient passages, following Blake's plates as track indexes. Stine Grytøyr, Ihsahn, Samoth and Fenriz all feature as guest vocalists.

The album received widespread acclaim from critics within both the rock/metal and alternative music press - being awarded Album of the Month in several high-profile magazines such as Terrorizer, Metal Hammer, and Rock Hard and ranked very highly in their end of year's best polls. However, the album’s transitional nature perhaps alienated many fans of the band’s first three albums - causing a backlash from the black metal scene.

In late 1997, Kristoffer Rygg invited keyboardist, sound conceptualist, and composer Tore Ylwizaker into the collective, and together they created a strategy for The Blake Album. Musically, the album transcended black metal’s aesthetics to create a genre-defying work and employed everything from ambient and classical sounds to industrial, prog metal, and art rock. The title alone being a loud signal that Ulver had changed somewhat.


...
Wikipedia

...