Ulcerate - Vermis (2013)^{Release ID: 2420}

It is both physically and mentally draining to listen to Vermis.  There's effort required here from me as a fan of death metal to simply plot what the fuck is going on across most of the nine tracks present here as they systematically pummel away at my ears with an absolute wall of noise whilst at the same time manage to send my brain into dizzying and spiralling cycles that disorientate in equal parts as they do entertain.  As with anything that requires some work though the reward has to more than compensate for the time, patience and sheer concentration required to persevere with a complex (bordering on fathomless) musical entity and Vermis' trophy is the fact that there is literally years of content here for the listener to savour.

Unlocking the mastery behind the cacophonous sounds that the three piece invoke is were their fourth (are we really counting The Coming of Genocide?) album really starts to stand up as one of extreme metal's finest hours.  The complexity behind the timings and the heaviness to the weight of the music are all evidence of really intelligent song writing and musicianship.   Although most definitely a death metal record at it's core, this album explores the world of prog and doom to create what some scribes have described as "post-death metal".  I am not as eager to place labels on things and put them into convenient sized boxes perhaps but where I do agree with other reviewers on the internet is that all of the elements described that make Ulcerate's sound on Vermis are perfectly balanced, directed with a precision that borders on engineering and formulate an output that is unique. 

In the same year that this record was released, Gorguts dropped Colored Sands on the world and I spent weeks of my life toiling with both, eventually determining the Canadian's release to be superior.  This was such a close run thing because whilst both exude an almost scientific mindset to their approach, Ulcerate's release needed multiple plays and with each one I had to dredge the tracks, listening carefully to try and follow the dissonance and map the progression throughout.  By comparison, Colored Sands was more accessible (which is a fucking bold statement), more immediate and able to be managed in bite-sized chunks, whereas Vermis played best as a whole sitting, the component tracks of the nine on the album all intertwined somehow in building this twisted structure.

Although I think the mix is off for some parts of the record (the vocals and drums seem to suffer at the expenses of the riffs at times) the density of the record creates such a murky and immersive atmosphere that you can't help but feel lost (or trapped even?) in the experience of Vermis.  There's a sense of real expansion behind the whole album, like the record is somehow creating enough space for you to process it in whilst actually just using it to crush you with more of the oppressive weight it generates.  In building the record, drummer Jamie Saint Merat is integral in proceedings.  He turns in a complex and yet natural shift on here and yet never dominates the proceedings, although let down by the mix on more than one occasion there's still no feel of him having to jostle for position like he can hold point perfectly and deliver what he needs to.  By comparison Hoggard's monstrous and perplexing riffing drive most of the album from the front seat.  His guitar pushes the aforementioned wall of noise on top of the listener and it is his work you must decipher first to truly understand the value of the treasures beneath.  Kelland's vocals gasp, gurn and contort their way, serpentine-like through the album.  Again, sometimes lost in the mix but consistently audible in the main to add menace to the atmospheres that are conjured.

It is impossible not to be impressed by Vermis.  It is a triumph of both design and content only let down on attention to detail across the whole album in terms of the mix that keeps it at a 4.5 rating.  What came after this release was a notch higher and suffered no such issues with the mixing desk but that's covered in another review.