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Oct 10, 2016 Web Exclusive By Billy Hamilton

Part way through Blood Bitch someone asks Jenny Hval “What’s this album about?” She answers: “Vampires… and more things.” It’s a perfect description of the Norwegian’s slant on songwriting. Hval is a pursuer of the sonically extraordinary; an adventurer of jarring soundscapes.

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; immersing Hval deep into the sexualised synth lines and textured backdrops of “Period Piece” and “Female Vampire.”

This approach makes for a more cohesive listen than 2015’s Apocalypse, girl, but it never feels like an explicitly safe experience. A horror film vulnerability courses through songs such as “Untamed Region” and the breathless horror show of “The Plague.” And while the transcendental hum of “Conceptual Romance” is its own glorious apex, it makes more sense when stitched inside the record’s gnarled fibres.

Vampires, periods, sex, love, life, death… Blood Bitch is, ultimately, about everything and nothing. (www.jennyhval.com)

Author rating: 8/10