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Oct 13, 2016There are so many ways into Blood Bitch that it’s dizzying: Chris Kraus, Nino Nardini, the synths, the immensely pillowy hooks, black metal, menstrala. 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.
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Sep 29, 2016Stark but lush, these are pop songs for moonlit lakes, soft throbs to bob in while no one else is looking.
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Sep 26, 2016Jenny 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.
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Oct 4, 2016Blood Bitch an interesting step forward from previous record Apocalypse, girl. It takes the guilty, ominous tone of that record and transforms it into something transcendent.
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Oct 4, 2016Hval is a clear disciple of Kraus. On paper, Kraus moves fluidly from reference to reference, dense with ideas; Hval’s music is like this, too, and never more than on Blood Bitch.
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Sep 29, 2016All that’s left to do is to approach the album the way you would modern art at a museum: with open ears, curious eyes, and a desire to exit with a newfound ability to find beauty in most everything around you.
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The WireNov 8, 2016This wonderful music is most certainly bleeding freely from somewhere deep inside Jenny Hval. [Nov 2016, p.58]
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Oct 19, 2016Despite controversial lyrics, unconventional song structures, and a lofty concept, Blood Bitch somehow fits like a defiant glove against all the odds.
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Oct 13, 2016Blood 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.
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Oct 10, 2016[A] short but highly intriguing record from Norwegian pop experimentalist Jenny Hval.
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Oct 10, 2016A more cohesive listen than 2015's Apocalypse, girl, but it never feels like an explicitly safe experience.
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Oct 7, 2016A bewitching album from an artist at the peak of her powers.
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Sep 30, 2016Musically, Blood Bitch plays a lot with drone, feedback and white noise, while simultaneously handing huge portions of songs over to the most melodic and annoyingly catchy work Hval has ever made.
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Sep 30, 2016It’s about making art in a capitalistic society, where the artist must cannibalize every part of herself and offer it to a sometimes unwilling and unreceptive audience. It’s all a quest for immortality and staying power among icy cold synths, quiet samples and screaming. Sometimes, Jenny Hval is the vampire, and sometimes she’s the one bleeding.
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Sep 28, 2016Blood Bitch won't reward casual listeners, but it offers plenty to those who want to get a little lost.
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Sep 27, 2016The most uncomfortable elements of life, colliding to create frantic, disorganised, but completely coherent mess, this record isn’t basic. It’s anything but.
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Sep 19, 2016An intimate existential chronicle of imprisonment and liberation, its visceral, blood-smeared intensity works off a steady heartbeat of acute artistic ferment, the roiling passion underlying Hval's powerful declaration of self.
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MojoSep 14, 2016Hval's most rounded missive to date unsettles. [Oct 2016, p.98]
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Sep 14, 2016Blood Bitch confirms her singular methodology is now at its most surgically precise and bold. In realising her uncontainable ambitions, one might even suggest it represents Hval's coming of age. [Oct 2016, p.38]
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Sep 14, 2016Hval’s most personal record, Blood Bitch is an understated but intriguing album by a perpetually fascinating artist.
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Sep 14, 2016It’s an absorbing mix of spooky comedown synthtronics, night-time traffic ambience, electro glitches and animals scratching at the door, over which Hval sings, whispers, talks and pants her feelings and philosophies.
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Oct 4, 2016it. At times, this is probably easier to admire than to actually sit down and enjoy, but it’s an impressive achievement nonetheless.
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Sep 29, 2016Blood 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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 29 out of 35
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Mixed: 4 out of 35
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Negative: 2 out of 35
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Oct 11, 2016
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Sep 30, 2016
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Feb 9, 2021