Labels: Willowtip
Review by: Kunal Nandi
Cropping up on many a more mainstream music opinion makers’ metal roundup of 2011 list, I feel like I’m meant to be suspicious of this more artistically leaning approach to death metal, and instead favour the gritty, monochrome, filthily brutal and somehow more honest stuff you hear about the place.
What’s swaying me most of all towards the former is the guitar work here. The two intertwined players create a swirling maelstrom of dissonant, discordant riffing that really contain a sense of the epic, with an innate melodiousness within the noise.
Jamie Saint Meurat, who also contributes to the band’s overall classy, tasteful and unusual aesthetic in terms of artwork, is a remarkably precise and technical drummer, and he does not hold back when in full flow. In fact, it feels like he almost never does, so the music seems overly busy at times. It does create an interesting counterpoint between the hammering without pause and the almost stately riffs though.
While I might be too mentally feeble to process this completely right now, I am able to stomach the whole thing in a sitting, which doesn’t mean it’s puny or makes concessions for the listener. Far from it. It’s relentless throughout, just with moments of intense and immense beauty in its brutality. Like a lot of bands like this, I find myself really admiring Ulcerate and what they do, but I also think it borders of love too.