Vinny's Reviews

I never got the love for Asphyx's prior outing to this record.  The Rack as a stand alone record of its time was tame at best.  I found it devoid of memorable riffs which for a death/doom record is no mean feat in my book.  Thankfully the follow up release was chock full of huge riffs to blow the underwhelming debut out of the water in one fell swoop.

Things start off well enough with M.S. Bismarck but it's track number two that really gets the blood pumping.  The main riff to The Krusher is - fittingly - crushing!  It is so full of groove and bite that it is literally like having a set of teeth embedded in your throat whilst the beast that aforementioned fangs belong to shakes the very life out of your body.  I could listen to this track over and over on repeat and never get bored of it.  One of the most infectious riffs ever written in the history of metal for me.

Serenade in Lead continues proceedings in a more aggressive and calculated manner with it's full frontal assault and (more) memorable riffage before the title track settles down into the more familiar doomy edged death metal with its macabre tone and drawn out pace.  The rest of the album continues in this pretty much similar pattern of confrontational lyrics coupled with heavy riffs and scathing delivery which is where the criticism comes in.  For all its looming presence and vibrant riffage the memorability factor still isn't cranked up much higher than the debut.  The difference being that this release has standout moments that have stuck with me since the first listen.

I am a massive fan of Van Drunen's style and his demented ramblings seem ultra-bonkers on here.  He was absent for the next 25 years after this release and he's never really topped this vocal performance with Asphyx since he returned.  For me Asphyx's sophomore release was their peak, with nothing coming close to the almost dirty and gritty guitar sound over the past 30+ years.  Not perfect by a long chalk but the important parts are stuck in my head for the rest of my life.

I am going to immediately go out on a limb and openly admit to liking Will Duvall era AIC more than Layne Stayley era AIC. I absolutely acknowledge the moments of quality from the 90’s – there is undeniably a sense that when they got it right Stayley and co were quite a force after all. The problem with even Dirt is that it is not a complete album, like its predecessor it is just a selection of songs with a few top notch, high-quality tracks that survive as anthems to this day. There is no sense of an album of theirs from their first iteration as a group making all that much of a statement to me, more that they could just drop some great songs. I look at Facelift and immediately get lost after the first two tracks.

Although not perfect in terms of complete albums, Duvall era AIC have more consistency and as such TDPDH and Rainier Fog have been their crowning glories as a revamped group. Sticking with TDPDH, it is clear that the band were more settled when it came to writing this album in comparison to the promising yet lacking in finesse BGWTB. Duvall certainly has a unique voice and, on this record, it synchronises in harmony with Cantrell’s perfectly. Likewise, there is a greater sense of fit to the music as well. There are times when it is criminal how at ease with each other all the instruments sound on the record. Each one audible yet so well ordered and mixed in that there is a constant freedom to the sound.

As we have come to expect from previous albums Jerry Cantrell’s presence on TDPDH is obvious. As co-vocalist he is integral in giving that harmonious sound but when he goes solo (Hung on A Hook) his sultry tones add that grunge dimension to the sound. His guitar work is emotional yet controlled in the same regard. His sense of restraint to deliver a firm and yet heartfelt performance is a trait you would expect from a guitarist of his noted talent and experience. Cantrell knows how to write songs and he damn well knows how to add a genuine piece of himself into every last one of them also. His melodies singe the air as opposed to flashing bolts of lightning everywhere and leaving acrid smells in their wake.

The heaviness in TDPDH is tempered well even though it is an element that was present on BGWTB the band have captured some of that Angry Chair riff mentality and the catchiness of Man in the Box this time around. It is still an album that is steeped in rock as opposed to being just the dark emotional tirade of grunge but it has a positivity to it that suggests a band happy with their surroundings and at ease with their identity. There were snippets of this last time out (Last of My Kind) but here it just feels more organic like they have found their space and are throwing caution to the wind on where it means they fit in terms of pigeon-holes.

The follow up to this record, built firmly on the foundations laid down on this album, with Rainier Fog taking this catchy song writing and blending more seamlessly this harder edge and as such TDPDH here is a real game-changing record for AIC. It feels like they learned how to show all of their maturity and experience in a record but sound like they had an absolute blast whilst doing it.

I have to confess to liking Dirt a lot less nowadays than I did some thirty years ago when I first heard it.  Back then it was a mainstay of my listening rotation as I was genuinely enamoured with the riffs of Jerry Cantrell and his bluesy lead work.  The vibrant and electric sounds of the first two tracks on Dirt do still resonate with me to this day as a perfect start to an album as they typified the fact that not all grunge had to be gloomy and melancholic.  There was an immediacy back then to the opening of this record that was not often repeatable on most other releases of the time.  This spontaneous and perfectly tight sounding start is actually only rivalled upon reflection by the end of the record when the tumultuous Angry Chair, followed by the initially sultry and brooding Would? (that develops into a pounding album closer over its three-and-a-half-minute run time) close out the release brilliantly.

The problem I have with Dirt is what comes between these tracks as I now find the album to have lost a lot of the overall positivity that I held for it back in the day.  Arguably the more grungey aspects of the album are the ones that I now dislike the most as with the exception of Down In A Hole and Rooster I no longer enjoy the rest of Dirt.  Rain When I Die now sounds as whiny as the title suggests it should, only not in a cool reflective way like it used to and I just cannot stand Sickman anymore with its chaotic and too frantic structure.  It is not rare for me to find an AIC album that is frontloaded (although rarer in fact to find any album that is front and rear-loaded to such a small extent) as Facelift takes a huge dip south after the opening two tracks, so there is a consistency to their early output for me.  This is not to say that they are not still hugely important to the alternative metal movement - parking grunge references to one side for a moment - as AIC were really good at incorporating other influences into their vaguely metal-like foundations in order to offer something which was the core essence of alternative music.

I just do not feel that Dirt has aged that well for me, even acknowledging the nostalgia around the release and the importance of it.  I will openly acknowledge that they have never topped this release in either era of the band but the longevity of it is questionable nowadays even though there is still enough here to keep this a four star rating.

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.

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.

When I was 14 I witnessed the video on Raw Power TV to the title track from Judas Priest's "Painkiller" album. I hadn't heard any Priest up until that stage despite me having a good selection of Iron Maiden and Saxon records under my belt by that age. "Painkiller" blew me the fuck away! I mean, what was not to love? Thunderous drums, a mix of gruff and shrill vocal antics and duelling lead guitars. I went straight out that afternoon and bought the album and blasted it for consecutive days for the next 3 months. All in all, not a bad gateway album to the band. The final point to make about "Painkiller" was that the record kicked the ass of most other releases in what was simply a stellar year for metal with "Rust in Peace", "Cowboys from Hell", "Danzig II: Lucifuge" and "Harmony Corruption" all dropping that same year, to mention but a few.

The real draw of "Painkiller" was the memorability of the experience, the intensity aside (which in itself was a fucking energising venture) one run through the record left seared scorch marks across your brain. For years after I could run through the entire album in my head note for note. "Firepower" is exactly the same. A mere 24 hours after it coming into my life and I can sing along with the lyrics, air guitar to near note perfection and bash my fingers bloody to the drums on my desktop. It's full of anthemic choruses and simple yet effective hooks that just pull you in.

Now, here's where the "Painkiller" comparisons stop. "Firepower" is not another "Painkiller" in terms of pace or intensity by any means (whoever expected as much is dreaming). It is however really strongly written and the arrangement is damn near perfect. Let's not forget that Priest formed in 1969. That's 49 years ago and they can still put out relevant and exciting metal almost without effort.

Try and not headbang to any of the opening six tracks, if you can achieve it you are almost certainly dead inside. Try not to make ridiculous gurning faces to any of the lead work on here and again if you succeed, check your pulse! Sad though it maybe that Glenn has confirmed his Parkinson's is now progressed enough to stop him from touring there is no doubt that he can exchange blows, pound for pound with Faulkner and barely break a sweat. Travis is as solid as ever behind the skins and although all my attention is on those fucking guitars he thumps along well enough to lynch the sound to a rhythmic core, as Hill rumbles along moulding his bass lines to the rest of the instrumentation nicely. Halford still sounds strong to my ears, not his old self by any means but he carries off "Firepower" brilliantly.

There's no point doing a track by track description here, if you have read the review to this point you'll get the idea. Criticisms? It is too long, by about 2 or maybe 3 tracks. However, you can easily suffer the dips in the quality here and there as you are rarely away from some truly great music. It does get a little samey at times too but that's forgivable to me as nobody is looking to reinvent any wheels here this may cause issue with the longevity of the record though for me. Right now though I love it, I fucking love it.

The unmistakable sound of Finnish Death Metal emanates from the speakers the instant you put Psychostasia on.  That brutal approach coupled with the technical edge of death metal does emanates forth like a cosy darkness from the blackest of flames imaginable.   The use of atmosphere is also notable here with a doomy edge to proceedings giving weight to the sound as well as a harrowing cut to the guitar work that adds to this dank hue perfectly.

Perhaps most notable for me are the vocals.  They are a whispered menace throughout the record, a suffocating rasp that sounds other-worldly.  They enhance the instruments by sitting well in the mix but also by their unique style.  Likewise, the drums are key in the mix as they most definitely can be heard but they never dominate proceedings yet remain constantly in my awareness.  The main driver here on the record however is the superb riffs on display.  The scathing and melodic riff to The Book Of The Worm is one of the first pieces of Finnish Death Metal that I ever heard and the track remains one of my favourite tracks from the country to this day.

Inevitably, Adramelech drew comparisons with Demilich which I always felt was only half true a likeness.  The technicality is there yes but the there's a lot more depth to Psychostasia and personally I visit this record a lot more than Nespithe.  I feel that Adramelech more than stand on their own two feet and don't need the comparison to the mighty aforementioned band, this album was their debut full length after a couple of EPs at the start of the 90s and it already showed a penchant for songwriting and a maturity of playing that might not have been as avant-garde as the only full length from their compatriots some three years earlier, but it still remains a solid and often overlooked classic death metal record.