UMUR "Themes From William Blake´s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is the 4th full-length studio album by Norwegian experimental metal/rock act Ulver. The album was released through Jester Records in December 1998.

"Themes From William Blake´s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is a 2 Disc conceptual release and as the title suggests the lyrical theme revolves around the novel "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by William Blake. The album probably came as a big surprise for most fans of the band when it was originally released. The three albums that preceeded this one are all rooted in black metal and Scandinavian folklore. The acoustic folky second album "Kveldssanger (1995)" probably also came as a big surprise when it was released as the debut album "Bergtatt (1994)" is a black metal album. Most fans still saw Ulver as a black metal act though and when they returned with their third album "Nattens Madrigal (1996)", which also saw a return to the black metal style of the debut (but adding a grimmer more raw sound), that seemed to hold true. "Themes From William Blake´s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" takes Ulver music in a whole new direction though and while they probably lost a few of their most conservative black metal fans they gained new more experimental minded music fans with this release.

Ulver´s music on "Themes From William Blake´s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" can no longer be called metal. There are sections with distorted guitars but metal it ain´t. Instead there´s much focus on vocals (both male and female, and quite a bit of narration), ambient electronic elements, and a strong emphasis on dark atmosphere. Ambient and atmospheric industrial tinged rock/metal could be a valid description. It´s an album which is all about atmosphere, and listeners craving riffs and hard rocking parts should look elsewhere.

"Themes From William Blake´s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is both well performed and well produced, and to those interested in dark atmospheric and ambient music, it´s quite an interesting and obviously well composed album too. Personally I find it lacking memorable moments and it´s a bit overlong too. When the band finally break the ambient monotony and play some louder more rock/metal oriented parts, it´s still pretty monotone and just goes on and on an on with little to hold on to. Subjective opinions and taste in music aside, it´s still obvious that "Themes From William Blake´s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is a quality release performed by skilled and passionate performers, and therefore a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

Warthur When some bands move away from the genres they are mainly know for, the transition is gradual, and occurs over the process of several albums. Not so for Ulver, whose break from black metal was sudden and absolutely complete; from this album onwards, they would never look back.

Here, their music havers mainly in a post-rock sort of space, with occasional forays into trip-hop and just enough outbursts of industrial metal guitar to establish that whilst black metal was off the table, metal itself was still part of the palette. Over these instrumentals various vocalists recite portions from the poetry of William Blake. To my ears, it's a rather disjointed affair, with the metal and trip-hop and post-rock sections sat next to each other without sufficient connecting tissue to really make them feel like part of the same composition, and the end result is a bit of a jumble. This might have been OK as a 40 minute album but as a double album it begins to lose my attention.

Xaxaar This album is not the Ulver you've been used to hearing. It was definitely a risky project to attempt. It seems like 90% of the album is spoken word over a drum beat with some ambients. Given this, it does create the exact mood that they intended, I'm sure, which is probably the hi-light of the album. And you would think that an album that repeats the same philosophy on music in every song would get boring, especially because the album is so long, but it really doesn't. The calm and haunting feel is easy to get lost in; just sit back and soak it in. I enjoyed it from start to finish, even though the last song deceived me a bit. When I first saw it, I was excited for a 26 minute long epic at the end, but sadly it's just one of those 5 minute songs with silence at the end for a small bonus track. Admittedly, The Way of All Flesh fooled me too. But that being said, the 5 minute song at the end is one of the better songs on the album. But all in all, a very good interpretation of Blake's TMOHAH, if nothing else. It's a very difficult album to try and describe. Even though it is very simple, it does require all of your attention to really get the mood of it all (definitely not something you listen to in the background while working or something). It was a good experience, but not quite the masterpiece I heard others praise it as. Nonetheless, I would still recommend it if the concept sounds appealing to you. I surely don't fault people for praising this album so highly, but to me it falls short of being considered a legendary piece.