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New Zealand’s metal pride and joy, Ulcerate, has released a taste of its new album, The Destroyers of All, out January 25, 2011 on Willowtip. You can stream “Dead Oceans” below or download it here.
“Dead Oceans”
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It’s a monster. Ulcerate is part of a forward-thinking death metal thread that includes the later discographies of Meshuggah and Decapitated. That thread is technical but not wanky, and is, more importantly, atmospheric.
In death metal, “atmosphere” typically means “cavern vocals + blurry production”. But “Dead Oceans” sounds like Neurosis sharpened and set atop death metal chops. (The below video of guitar tracking sounds decidedly post-metal.) These chops are subtle and organic. Drums sound like drums, and the guitars’ edge has not been Andy Sneap-ed away. Keening lines answer each other left and right (hear this in headphones if you can), with majestic octaves evoking Immolation. These seven minutes are otherworldly. I eagerly await more.
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http://www.vimeo.com/14239474. . .
For a detailed audiovisual studio blog from recording The Destroyers of All, see here.
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never better! almost steals ‘meshuggah’s’ thunder, but not quite……..
Sometimes like Neurosis/Immolation/Gorguts…very cool band.
Every time Cosmo uses a word like ‘wanky,’ I like this blog more. Nice use of the lingo.
Phenomenal band. I didn’t even realize they had a new album on the way! Their last one was proof that modern technical death metal doesn’t have to be overly polished and soulless. I’ll definitely be checking out the new track when I get home.
This is the perfect answer to Scalzi’s post on “Why do you like death metal?”
Because it led to this…
Also, I think any discussion of Ulcerate has to at least mention Gorguts From Wisdom to Hate album. Combined with a little dash of Isis-ey harmonic flavor, that album sounds like the foundation for Ulcerate. Some tracks on their 2007 album make the link even more explicit.
And Lemay is the king of “technical but not wanky”; as he put it: “It doesn’t have to be super-technical to be interesting.”
From someone who has been living in New Zealand for 6 years, this may be the country’s only decent metal act.
diocletian is another top notch new zealand metal act, at least at the extreme end of the scale- i dig this track, and find it interesting that it is almost only the vocals and drums which make this death metal- the guitars are a long way indeed from what i call DM, and that’s an exciting thing
@Matt G
The guitars are exactly where DM is right now, which is why this album will have a (minimal) impact. It’s a striving for atonal post-rock ambiguity (thus “modernity”, “profundity” in a DM structure). This is a good band, though. They express absolutely nothing at all…but that’s the zeitgeist, the inability to express anything. So in that respect art reflects…blah blah. Hmmm…at least the kick triggers sound cool. With bands like this the most important thing is capturing the full sonic range of the guitars to take up most of the stereo field and thus provide weight where other guitar parts/nuances would be useful. Production is key. There is an empty space among the compression, though, right in the center…and the tom sound is terrible…
Diocletian is fucking horrible, btw. If their new album took more than two weeks to write there’s something wrong with them…
Another good band from NZ is Monsterworks…
BTW, great song. Can’t wait!
this band gets better with each album, I hope it will continue this way
Wow. I’m really digging this!
The dissonant guitar tone gets me contemplating the notion of what Piggy [Voivod] could contribute to a Death Metal release.
//TB