Hval’s always been a visceral storyteller, but now she really dips us into a new world, crimson-tinted and surreal, led by either her vampire self or her real artist self.
Part of the beauty of what Hval does is the way her art takes you to a place you didn’t know existed, but in a way where you don’t notice the journey.
Jenny Hval remains one of the most powerful, honest and funny performers working in music today, and this dissection of her self and her work is fascinating to the point of obsession.
Sounds and concepts flow into each other as potently as blood itself on Blood Bitch, a bewitching album from an artist at the peak of her powers.
The themes run from menstruation to vampires to capitalism to loneliness to pap smears, and any thread you pick can take you to the core. You have been invited in.
Blood Bitch is an ambitious and awesomely executed album from Hval, a landmark outing for the experimental artist. Borrowing a soul-baring line from closer “Lorna,” you’ve “never known pleasure like this.”
Blood Bitch sees Hval re-united with Lasse Marhaug, with the two sharing production duties. Marhaug, is arguably more in his element here with Hval embracing noise and drone more than she has on any previous record. It makes Blood Bitch an interesting step forward from previous record Apocalypse, girl.
She experiments with darkness and various forms of liberation on the regular, particularly so in last year’s Apocalypse, girl, but Hval goes deeper on Blood Bitch while somehow staying lighter.
Few tracks work on their own, but together they convey an urge to achieve order through art. Blood Bitch won't reward casual listeners, but it offers plenty to those who want to get a little lost.
Hval's triumph is in cleverly transforming the (for some people) unsavoury aspects of such an intimate female bodily function into something acutely and collectively important.
Interestingly, given the title and themes, Blood Bitch is less operatic than one might expect.
Hval’s approach has always been equal parts instinctive, intellectual and whimsical, but Blood Bitch confirms her singular methodology is now at its most surgically precise and bold. In realising her uncontainable, bewildering ambitions, one might even suggest it represents Hval’s coming of age.
Blood Bitch is a record that doesn’t try to be anything. Whereas Apocalypse, Girl was contrived and Viscera was uneventful, this record is dreamy and memorable, both through its illusion of simplicity and its gentle invitation to listeners.
Hval’s most personal record, Blood Bitch is an understated but intriguing album by a perpetually fascinating artist.
Despite controversial lyrics, unconventional song structures, and a lofty concept, Blood Bitch somehow fits like a defiant glove against all the odds.
Hval’s latest is a complex, disarming listen that delves into new, foundry-pushing territory with the enthusiasm of an overzealous Pokemon Go player exploring new corners of the neighbourhood.
Blood Bitch is her latest attempt to marry up the pretty and the grotesque. An open exploration of menstruation, the record uses her ceramic intone to startling effect,
Paradoxically both accessible and alienating, Blood Bitch remains willfully enigmatic and unshakably fascinating in its atmospheric abstraction.
Blood Bitch commits the ultimate crime of all so-called concept albums: there is undeniable effort in the subject and story it was supposed to tell, but little magic in the execution.
Never trust a new Jenny Hval album.
If there is one thing that the Norwegian continues to teach me continuously throughout her already long discography of 8 albums, it is that it is impossible to try to predict her next move. While her last album was dancing at the first listenings, with a strange concept to accompany it... it didn't fail. I barely had time to say "It's a good little album, very nice" when SNAP! Jenny had once again taken me by surprise, this time by deeply sticking ... read more
1 | Ritual Awakening 1:42 | 75 |
2 | Female Vampire 3:37 | 87 |
3 | In the Red 2:21 | 72 |
4 | Conceptual Romance 4:32 | 94 |
5 | Untamed Region 4:51 | 70 |
6 | The Great Undressing 4:00 | 83 |
7 | Period Piece 2:41 | 71 |
8 | The Plague 5:57 | 72 |
9 | Secret Touch 4:39 | 84 |
10 | Lorna 2:06 | 72 |
#1 | / | FACT |
#1 | / | The Line of Best Fit |
#4 | / | Mashable |
#4 | / | The Independent |
#6 | / | The Wire |
#6 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |
#7 | / | Gaffa (Norway) |
#7 | / | Sound Opinions |
#7 | / | The 405 |
#7 | / | The Vinyl Factory |