You’ve seen it happen. Your favorite band, who released some of the best records you’ve ever heard, who completely changed the way you thought about music, who could do no wrong, release a new record that you just can’t enjoy. You don’t know what to do. Maybe you lose some respect for the band. Maybe you lose some respect for yourself – for putting too much faith in your heroes or for failing to appreciate what must be a work of genius far beyond your understanding. It sucks.
At least, I imagine it would. You see, I can’t relate to your shameful feelings because the band that reshaped my understanding of music was Ulcerate. Everything Is Fire ignited my passion for their visionary re-invention of extreme metal, and every Ulcerate record thereafter has been an unqualified success. From the post/death metal synthesis of The Destroyers of All, through the ragged and ferocious take on that sound in Vermis, to the gradual introduction of melody in Shrines of Paralysis, each of the Auckland trio’s subsequent albums expanded the Fire sound into a modern classic. Their latest is no exception.
Stare into Death may be Ulcerate’s most approachable record, but it is unmistakably an Ulcerate record, and “approachable” for adherents of their winding, dissonant, and atmospheric death metal will still equate to “unlistenable” for most. It adventures into more melodic territory than Shrines of Paralysis did before it but retains the dense counterpoint and murky tonality of an Ulcerate record. The title track provides a perfect synopsis of Stare into Death and be Still; Michael Hoggard’s endlessly shifting phrases flow between atmospheric waves, driving riffs, and anthemic melodies, almost always in cross-motion between right and left. Cymbals shimmer and skins buckle under Jamie St Merat’s equally restless drumming, and an almost subsonic bass growls in Paul Kelland’s hands. At the song’s apex bleak melody completely takes over, harmonized only at the edges of phrases as Kelland roars the eponymous command.
As ever before, Ulcerate’s compositions are lengthy and unpredictable. “Exhale the Ash” turns on a dime from the expansive style of The Destroyers of All to the pummeling riffing of Everything Is Fire. “Drawn into the Next Void” spotlights a winding tremolo riff that would sit comfortably in an old Krallice album and lapses into a subdued but still knotty segment about three minutes in. Throughout the album the band retreat into these quiet sections, often grounded by bass but filled in with vitreous, echoing guitar lines. “Dissolved Orders” begins and ends this technique, proving a powerful climax for the record. Such digressions represent the furthest point of Ulcerate’s foray into melodic territory and are a hallmark of Stare into Death’s sound.
The success of Stare into Death and Be Still rests on Ulcerate’s delivery of material that both reaffirms and expands upon their sound. Despite plenty of other tech death groups writing material that synthesizes the band’s disharmony with more traditional sounds, Stare into Death is unmistakably the product of the Kiwis themselves and not adherents. The band continue to intersect brutal death metal, post metal, and black metal into contorted but beautiful shapes with little regard for traditional rhythms and only scattered allusions to melody.
That they can manage such compositional twists is impressive on a technical level, but Ulcerate’s power comes from their emotional impact. Stare into Death and Be Still is a rumination on collapse and decay, and its arrival amidst a world-historical revelation of human precarity would seem almost too prescient were it not yet another entry into the line of Ulcerate albums tackling the same subject. Like the records before it, Stare into Death is a colossal thing that is at times oppressive, at times cathartic, and at times incomprehensible. Yet the moments of clarity that dispel its suffocating pall may provide entry into the band’s hopeless canon for those previously repelled. Whether drawn to the source of the smoke for the first time today or more than a decade ago, you owe it to yourself to witness the latest flare from Ulcerate’s all-consuming flame.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Websites: ulcerate.bandcamp.com | ulcerate.com | facebook.com/ulcerate
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2020
