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

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