Who knows what a world where people were truly open about sex and bodies would be like. I’m honestly a little scared to find out, but Norwegian songstress Jenny Hval isn’t and her explorations on the theme have been a big part of her work, over the years. Her latest album, Blood Bitch, heads directly for the taboo. You might get it from the title: it’s about menstruation. Once you get past the female vampires, capitalism, acceptance of failure, madness and other relationship issues, running underneath it all is a river of blood.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t Peaches and Hval’s aim isn’t to shock, at least not primarily. Her goals are more philosophical, like she wants to engage the listener in a conversation. If you’ve listened to much of Hval’s stuff you’ll know she likes to insert quite a lot of spoken word material. Blood Bitch is littered with sampled snippets of dialogue. Even the pop, which is quite restrained, is often delivered in a sung-spoken style, talking you through the stuff that Jenny Hval has been thinking about.

Blood Bitch is almost more of a novel -an audio book?- than music. Its central character is a time-travelling vampire, a blood-sucking rock star that acts as a proxy for Hval, living out all the madness locked in her head. If it is something like a novel, Blood Bitch will reward you more if you treat it that way: absorbing the songs like chapters, adding up the plot in your mind to reach denouements and epiphanies. Pop music is usually supposed to be more immediate than that and you’d be forgiven for failing to engage with the music; just listening to it once or twice, throwing up your hands and saying, ‘ugh, concept albums!’

The very subtle pop, does actually become as rewarding as the thinking which it’s the vessel for, if you spend the time getting to know it. There’s plenty of Blood Bitch that’s composed of strange soundscapes, theatrical samples of pencils scribbling or ragged panting, or just flat-out screeching noise (check out the shrieking horror of The Plague), indeed the record was co-produced by fellow Norwegian and noise-supremo Lasse Marhaug, helping Hval reconnect with her goth and metal roots. Yet as much of it could be mistaken for ghostly echoes of Swedish dance-pop icon Robyn. Indeed there’s increasing parallels to be drawn between the pair as they both head more into dance music and introspective philosophical territory.

As complexly involved an investigation as Blood Bitch is I don’t even know that it offers answers. Much as with Apocalypse Girl before it it’s more of an open-ended inquiry into who and what Jenny Hval is, laid bare, for others to benefit from ... or not;  it’s a critics paradise, I guess, definitely not for everyone. That’s okay, as Hval repeatedly tells us: failure, in this world, is just fine.

Humorous, thoughtful, musical -like it was an afterthought- and relishing the taboos it splashes around in, Blood Bitch is a distinctive record. Jenny Hval may be at least partially insulated from what anyone else thinks about it; remember, failure is OK! Her focus continues to encompass a much bigger picture than that.

- Chris Cobcroft.