Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God (2024)^{Release ID: 52430}

New Zealand dissonant death metal masters Ulcerate's last album was a complete game-changer for me. The trio were largely responsible for converting me to the more dissonant brand of modern death metal after I'd originally been introduced to them through their classic 2009 sophomore album "Everything is Fire" but 2020's "Stare Into Death & Be Still" represented somewhat of a culmination of everything they'd done up until that point & it would become a categorical statement of intent to the global metal scene. It didn't do anything drastically different to what we'd heard from the band previously with its adjustments in technique & structure only being quite subtle. They'd somehow managed to make their dissonant sound more warm & melodic without losing any of the avant-garde dissonance & it worked absolutely brilliantly. I can still remember indulging myself in it while walking the streets of their hometown of Auckland while I was still managing the New Zealand service business at my previous employer & "Stare Into Death & Be Still" has since gone on to be awarded a place in my Top 100 Metal Releases of All Time list, such was its impact on me. That kind of recognition places a lot of pressure & expectation on an artist's next release though so it's lucky then that last year's "Cutting the Throat of God" is yet another marvelous achievement for one of the elite performers in all of metal.

"Cutting the Throat of God" saw Ulcerate returning with the same lineup that had recorded all of their albums to date. They're kinda unique in that regard with their consistency of personnel & their insular approach to creation playing a strong role in their ultimate success as they're afforded the time to grow & develop together at their own rate. They've also handled the recording & mixing themselves with drummer extraordinaire Jamie Saint Merat (Verberis) generally being taking the reins as the mastermind behind the creation of each album. The band's seventh full-length was recorded from September to December 2023 & would be Ulcerate's second full-length for French metal label Debemur Morti Productions. It sounds pretty spectacular too with Merat having achieved enough clarity to ensure that the cacophony of instrumentation makes complete sense but leaving enough noise in the equation to highlight Ulcerate's chaotic edge at the same time. His drum sound is a definite highlight of the production for me as it beautifully showcases Merat's unbelievable skill & creativity with his kick drum cutting through the mix with precision & power. I honestly think this dude might be an alien because this sort of shit simply shouldn't be humanly possible as far as I can see. He's an absolute drum enigma at this point & is only getting better & better with age. The vocals of bass player Paul Kelland (The Temple) boom out of the speakers with a similar aggression to what we heard on the last record, sounding absolutely monstrous at times, while the thick layers of guitar interplay from Michael Hoggard possess a unique understanding of counterpoint & melodic/harmonic theory, despite their clear emphasis on tension & dissonance. To be blunt, the album simply sounds like you're listening to the premier exponents of their craft because... well... you are!

"Cutting the Throat of God" contains an expansive array of different textures & atmospheres that take the listener on a journey that can often feel all-consuming but is tied together by common themes which seem to be very tightly constructed. If you're familiar with Ulcerate's previous work then this won't sound foreign to you at all. In fact, this is a very similar record to "Stare Into Death & Be Still" is most respects &, at this point, Ulcerate are starting to feel a little like AC/DC or Cannibal Corpse in that you know exactly what you're going to get but it doesn't prevent them from dazzling you with their incredible ability to take the listener to rarely achieved heights. The more subdued parts of the album are once again some of the most gripping & provide the perfect contrast to Jamie's spectacular blast-beat sections. Hoggard's contribution should not be overlooked on this occasion because it takes a rare talent to come up with multiple different guitar parts that sound so avant-garde in isolation but work so beautifully when played over the top of each other. He just seems to get better with each release in this regard. Kelland's vocals are possibly more varied than he's achieved before too with a variety of different delivery approaches being taken to keep the listener on their toes & all of them sounding as imposing as the last.

The tracklisting is nothing short of masterful with all seven pieces achieving classic status & ensuring that the quality level never shows signs of dropping across the lengthy hour-long run time. That's not to say that the quality levels are a flat line though as Ulcerate still possess the ability to take things to a higher rung that only their most elite peers can touch upon. On this album that climax is reached right in the middle of the album with the one-two punch of "Transfiguration In & Out of Worlds" & album highlight "To See Death Just Once" leaving me utterly destroyed, a blubbering mess on the floor muttering something about dark Kiwi gods. "Stare Into Death & Be Still" was programmed quite similarly actually, only I tend to feel that the crescendo on that record was a little longer which has given it a slight edge over its follow-up with me personally but that's not to take anything away from "Cutting the Throat of God" because it's yet another mind-blowing creative masterclass from one of the truly great metal establishments of the modern scene. I honestly can't see it being beaten for our Metal Academy Release of the Year Award at this point, an event that seemed almost inevitable before I'd even gotten halfway through my first listen. "Cutting the Throat of God" is about as essential as extreme metal gets in 2024 is the emphatic creative statement that diehard fans like myself were all hoping for.

For fans of Gorguts, Artificial Brain & Portal.

Due to my inbuilt aversion to overtly dissonant or technical death metal I have been somewhat reticent about checking out Ulcerate's latest, but year end is looming and I can't let 2024 pass by without listening to what has been almost universally acclaimed as the number one metal album of the year. I'm really glad I did too, because "Cutting the Throat of God" is an amazing album. I guess in the hands of true masters, even personally challenging material can transcend the inbuilt resistance listeners may have to music that resides well outside their usual comfort zone. What enables Ulcerate to break through my own personal issues with this challenging style of death metal is that they never allow the technicality or dissonance to affect the flow of the tracks. Too often these genres are too choppy and compositionally messy for me, but here the tracks maintain a logical and organic development at all times, with the dissonance and technicality always serving as a tool to relate that which the band wish to communicate rather than becoming the be-all-and-end-all in an attempt to show how clever the musicians are. This is an atmospheric version of death metal that is composed of shades and textures rather than riffs and blastbeats (although those are present). Heavily influenced by acts like Neurosis, Ulcerate utilise the death metal toolbox to produce an emotionally-charged post-metal style of death metal.

The aesthetic of Cutting the Throat of God is based around existential anxiety and the ultimate futility of organised belief structures, hence the atmosphere of melancholic dread that permeates the instrumentation. I don't think that the slightly off-kilter clangourous nature of much of the guitar leads, suggesting the desperate chiming of church bells as if declaring their inability to provide solace, is accidental, but is proof of the band's attention to detail and is testament to their songwriting skills. The constant shifting of tone from introspective and morbid, to angered and explosively violent, further deepens the atmosphere of existential impotence.

Now this is not an especially new aesthetic within extreme metal circles, but very rarely have I encountered such a compelling and coherent expression of nihilistic dread. This success is entirely due to the adroitness of the musicians involved, both technically and compositionally. It is supremely evident that even though much of the album is meant to engender a feeling of chaotic confusion, the songwriting is supremely tight with not a single note out of place and is very far from being confused or chaotic in it's production or execution. Special mention must go out to drummer Jamie Saint Merat whose drum patterns are so complex and precise that I often found myself zoning in on them. So interesting do they sound that I have the feeling I could listen to the drum track in isolation and find it utterly compelling.

I don't wish to give the impression that this is a lightweight affair, because it is exceedingly heavy at times, but sheer heaviness is not the primary directive here and the lighter moments deepen the impact of the heavy. Paul Kelland's bellowing, gutteral roar also contributes to the album's surface-level heaviness, whilst perfectly encapsulating the philosophical frustration and existential dread expressed in the lyrics. The chiming leadwork, despite it's slight dissonant quality, is often deceptively hooky and melodic, with me finding some of the guitar phrases leaping unbidden into mind throughout the day, such is their memorability. The guitar phrasing is also such that it sounds very much like there are certain recurrent themes surfacing throughout the tracks, tying the whole album together.

For me, this is an example of technical dissonance with real soul, which is unusual for a style that I often find to be emotionally sterile. Now, in truth, I don't have the technical knowhow to properly dissect "Cutting the Throat of God" and I may have read too much into it's perceived themes and concepts, but all great art holds a mirror up to the beholder to some extent, so maybe this just resonates with something deep within me. Whatever the reason, this feels like one of the most personal and affecting metal releases I have ever heard and will now, despite some tough competition, almost certainly be my AOTY for 2024 and head towards the upper echelons of my all-time favourites list.

With Ulcerate being one of only a handful of bands who can genuinely excite me anymore with their music, I avoided any teasers on the internet for Cutting the Throat of God, waiting instead until the vinyl and t-shirt combo I had placed on pre-order many weeks ago finally landed in my grubby little mitts. The trick had worked for the last two records by the kings of dissonant death metal and despite my nervous that Ulcerate were long overdue a bad release (a golden run that goes as far back as Everything is Fire) I stuck with the process this time around also.

Once again, Ulcerate have delivered. I can think of no higher praise to heap on this record other to say that once it starts, I never want it to stop. As someone who is rarely moved emotionally by music nowadays, I find Cutting the Throat of God to be a welcome sensory wrench and a deeply stirring and fervent emotional experience at the same time. The expansive complexity is there as I have come to expect (although for me it sounds a little more dialled back overall – more on that later), yet the sense that there is a titanic shift within my very being ongoing is far more disorientating than the technical aptitude of the musicians and their songwriting.

Being able to captivate me from the off with the intro to your opening track is a rare achievement indeed, yet To Flow Through Ashen Hearts does this effortlessly. It is menacing and carries the upmost sense of threat that I have heard in a long time. Reminiscent of how Vermis started off way back in 2013, Ulcerate really prove that they know how to open a record. Of course, that is not the end of the experience by any means and having started as they mean to go on, they simply drop into cruise mode and deliver one of the most accomplished death metal albums I have ever heard and by far the best album Ulcerate have ever done.

Referencing Vermis made me recognise that although it has gotten better over the many records that have dropped since then, the vocal mix on their latest opus is absolutely bang on. On Vermis the vocals were mostly lost, an afterthought almost. Here, building on the improvements made on previous offerings since then, they are perfectly enacted against the instrumentation without detracting from their overall impact. Structure wise, I have to say I sense this record to be Ulcerate’s most accessible release to date. The fade and explode benchmarks are still here as well as that contagion virus of death metal tremolo riffs that punctuate the dense atmospheres with added brevity; almost sanguine melodies invest even more to really stretch the listening experience. But fundamentally the listener is pushing at an open door here when trying to access the gifts of Cutting the Throat of God. Ulcerate temper any technical mastery without ever leaving any doubt as to just how much effort has gone into composing such structures. Yet this is not arcane or esoteric music. It has flow, ebb and swell in bucket loads. However, it is a traceable record, with clear tracks. The Dawn Is Hollow may seem to perish as opposed to end, but Further Opening the Wounds does exactly what it says on the tin and starts something anew immediately.

If Gorguts are planning on releasing anything this year, then I would personally wait because this masterpiece is going to be hard to top in dissonant death metal circles. Album of the year right here folks.

Five years ago, I was quite impervious when it came to technical death metal. My tolerance for the genre was very thin and I never felt like I could get anywhere with discovering the genre as an outsider. So when Ulcerate came along with their album, State Into Death and Be Still and showed me a new perspective on the genre, I was surprised. Turns out that technical death metal does not consist of just Cyptopsy, Nile, and Dying Fetus. One of the downsides however, is now that my palette of tech-death is where it is now, it becomes even harder to like those pedestrian tech-death bands because the bar was set so high five years ago!

If there was ever a band that could accurately describe their music without playing it, it would be Ulcerate. The bands sophomore album, Everything Is Fire, is a concise descriptor of the music found within. It's the hauntingly gorgeous beauty of staring out over a burning forest; nothing will be left except for burnt ash and rubble, while the wildlife of the forest are all left homeless with no protection from the elements, but you cannot help but stare dumbfound into its destruction. Suffice to say that Cutting the Throat of God was one of my most anticipated records of 2024. Did Ulcerate make the cut?  

Cutting the Throat of God is objectively a great album. I really enjoy the texture of the guitars and the pulsating drive they have. Ulcerate do not employ the traditional chugging patterns of other technical death metal bands and instead use open power chords and atmospheric melodic motifs. Percussion is relentless as is expected and while it can feel like too much at times, I never feel like the percussion is overbearing, or overtly technical for its own sake. The vocals are adequate enough; I haven't really spent much time with the lyrics themselves yet, but if they're only half as destructive as Stare Into Death and Be Still, they will be more than adequate for their performance and execution here. And while the bass is not immediately prominent, the record does have a lot of promise with its low end, doubled by the open chordal guitars.

Perhaps my biggest issue with Cutting the Throat of God is in the compositions. The album generally has a great flow to it and Ulcerate are well aware to give their listener breaks to relax between the intensity with these lovely post-metal interludes. But I feel like the record has too many of them? It's almost like they took my biggest criticism from Knocked Loose's album You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To and overcorrected. They can feel, especially later on in the record (i.e. "To See Death Just Once" and "Undying as an Apparition"), like a formality rather than a connecting link to the next loud, death metal passage. And so it was a pleasant surprise when the closing track, "Cutting the Throat of God" did not have these interlude sections.

Cutting the Throat of God is by no means a bad album. Ulcerate are making some of the most interesting technical death metal of the last ten years. It is somehow both a cataclysm of sound and also very melodic and thoughtful. Despite the density, every note feels meaningful and the performances are articulate. The runtime can feel a little bloated, but I think that's just in the nature of Ulcerate at this point. But maybe that's just what I want out my technical death metal.

Best Songs: The Dawn is Hollow, Further Opening the Wounds, To See Death Just Once, Cutting the Throat of God