Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Ulcerate - Everything Is Fire (2009)
It is no secret that I love me some Ulcerate. They enjoy that rarefied space in my estimation whereby I hold them in such high esteem that I would buy anything they put out without hearing it first. Like Gorguts and Immolation, Ulcerate have more than earned their props over the years and despite being the youngest of the three bands, possess a maturity that belies their years.
However, everybody must start somewhere and nobody in my top three has a flawless discography. Whilst Everything Is Fire is by no means perfect, it is an accomplished piece of technical/avant-garde death metal. We must consider that this was the New Zealander’s third record in seven years, with the previous two outings being good (if not particularly fully developed) foundation stones to build from. Listening to a bands discography in the wrong order is difficult though, especially when you consider their latter output – which I heard first - to be their best. In listening to pretty much anything before Vermis I am constantly having to remind myself that the best was yet to come and in doing so ensure that I am focused on rating output from before 2013 as being more formative releases.
It is fair to say that Everything is Fire exhibits all the technical capability we know and love from the band. At this stage in their career, they were by no means the finished article, yet at the same time they were pushing boundaries and trying new things. Whilst these do not always work (parts of the album do just sound like jumbled bashing and crashing) the overall structure is in place, albeit minus some of the finer detail I am more accustomed to with their later material.
Those trademark dissonant and mining riffs are fully present and accounted for. On a track like The Earth at Its Knees, this discordancy really thrives. My main criticism of the guitar is that it does feel removed at times from what is going on. Avant-garde tendencies aside (yes, I know this shit is not supposed to be linear) there is a real sense of disconnection in places between the guitar and the rhythm section. When they get it right (We Are Nil, Caecus, Tyranny and The Earth at Its Knees) they smash it out of the park. Saint Merat’s exquisite drumming shores up a lot of my dissatisfaction with Everything is Fire. At times on Stare Into Death and Be Still he seemed to cross into some other-worldly ability to concoct some of the most off-kilter yet utterly enthralling drum patterns. On this album he is by far the most advanced participant, with a skill set that perhaps is the reason why I get the sense that the rest of the group are playing catch-up. He is the engine behind all that happens here and in all honesty this album would just not work without him.
This album initially received an unfair three stars from me originally, which is particularly harsh as despite the above highlighted challenges this album is worthy of more. Revisiting it this time around has convinced me that there is enough identifiable quality here to link this to the wider discography that followed. Yes, I still believe they only hit their truly magical levels of cohesion on Vermis and have not looked back since, but I cannot think that many other bands in 2009 could deliver anything near the quality of Everything is Fire. I do not recall at this stage just how far they advanced themselves on Destroyers of All some two years on from this release (guess that is my next revisit that is required). If you are new to Ulcerate this would be the perfect place to start to truly chart the growth of one of metal’s finest avant-garde death metal outfits.