Murder Therapy – Rehearsals 2010
. . .
The above video, from a rehearsal space in Italy, may be a glimpse into death metal’s future.
It is of Murder Therapy, whose first album, 2009’s Symmetry of Delirium, was brutal/technical death metal, the kind on labels like Unique Leader and Neurotic. Afterwards, the band had a change of heart (and lineup). As the video shows, the band now leans towards post-metal, aka the “NeurIsis” sound, but isn’t afraid to use its death metal chops. Murder Therapy don’t play death metal now, at least as we know it – but how we know things changes over time. If you had played Deathspell Omega’s Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum to black metal observers in 1994, would they have called it black metal?
. . .
When I listen to Ulcerate’s The Destroyers of All (Willowtip, 2011), one main thought comes to mind: this is Neurosis playing death metal. Ulcerate nail Neurosis’ gift for the drone, for finding the truth in one or two notes and blowing it up to seismic proportions. “Seismic” is not a word often used with death metal, whose catchwords – brutal, technical, blackened – haven’t changed in a decade. But “seismic” is what Ulcerate attempt, down to the Neurosis-esque lyrics about natural elements.
They don’t succeed all the time. Sometimes blastbeats and double bass sound unnecessary amidst the slow riffing (shades of death metal drummer Derek Roddy’s overplaying on Today Is the Day’s Axis of Eden). But even that’s interesting. Not all parts of an ensemble must move at the same speed. Early drum ‘n’ bass had double-speed drums and half-speed bass; some dubstep now has kinetic bass lines but mere sketches of percussion. Nile and Morbid Angel have passages with slow, doomy riffs but fast double bass. Turn that exception into the rule, and our expectations for time change. Music can be both slow and fast simultaneously.
Atmosphere is Ulcerate’s main triumph. It’s 90% Neurosis, but 10% is something new that could lead to something good. “Atmosphere” in death metal typically means murk (e.g., Incantation, Portal), but here the atmosphere is minimal, precise, and occasionally cutting. Deathspell Omega’s flatted seconds have had a huge influence on the upper registers of metal riffs, including here. Ulcerate more reference that dissonance than construct anything with it. But even that reference is significant in context. Here a death metal band is hauling Neurosis into the 21st century, trimming the fat, and adding angles informed by Deathspell Omega. They are trying something new.
The concept of “multiple independent discoveries” states that unconnected people often discover the same things independently. (Malcolm Gladwell has a good article on this in The New Yorker.) A band in Italy (Murder Therapy) and a band in New Zealand (Ulcerate) have started exploring the same new territory. Given the Internet’s easy access to musical knowledge, I bet other bands are doing so, too. We may be at a liminal moment where one thing is becoming something else. (Post-death metal, perhaps?) Maybe people felt that when Kill ‘Em All moved NWOBHM into thrash, or when Seven Churches or Scream Bloody Gore tipped thrash into death metal. I doubt that The Destroyers of All will attain similar classic status, but it’s opened exciting possibilities.
. . .
HEAR THE DESTROYERS OF ALL
- Full album stream -
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CBCB6F89152F9307. . .
BUY THE DESTROYERS OF ALL
Amazon (MP3)
Amazon (CD)
Willowtip (CD)
. . .
Just got a copy of The Destroyers of All in the mail yesterday, began playing it on my headphones, and just started thinking “post-death” when I decided to check out Invisible Oranges. I very, very much like this so far (I’m only on track 2).
I hate bullfuck articles like this. There’s no death metal here, move the fuck along. The term ‘post-death metal’ is, and will only be, glorified by wankers who think they’re more sophisticated than the other sheep in the paddock.
Wow, I never even came close to thinking about Neurosis when listening to Ulcerate
Amazing insight you got there, Cosmo. Just listened to the album stream, it reminded me of mighty Gorguts but less avant-garde. Pretty awesome. I’ll definitely grab this one. Thanks a lot.
I described ulcerate- the destroyers of all to my buddy as the baby of gorguts and gaza. He felt that it was a pretty accurate description!
I’ve never listened to Ulcerate, but I’m going to pick up their album now. First thing I thought was Derek Roddy and Hate Eternal when I heard it. I’m not fully a fan of that wall-of-blastbeats sound, but it does seem like one logical end to death metal drumming. In Hate Eternal, it often seems like THE sound of the whole band, which I can kind of appreciate. But I dig that I can hear the riffing on the Ulcerate, and I’m intrigued by the contrasting dynamics.
I appreciate what Ulcerate is trying to do, but most of the songs sound like giant build-ups that lead nowhere. It’s so dissonant so much of the time that the effect gets lost. It sounds like they’re trying really hard to be obtuse — play one big ‘dumb’ riff every now and then, give us something to wrap our ears around!
i heard both bands here and i don´t think its the future of death metal o to be cataloged by post-death metal. theres something here but not so monumental to be a step beyond the “true” sound of death metal vanguard. i heard the last album from canvas solaris and it´s something that take metal beyond the boundaries of the genre itself, really cool indeed. try for example “the caller and the listener” by Mithras for me is something like a glimpse of the future… maybe there various styles taking form right now like multiple independet discoveries(well… obviously) but in death metal we will see then! (for me this[Murder Therapy,Ulcerate] is a little bit obsolete, a little…)
I’ve been enjoying the Ulcerate record for a few weeks now… it’s one of those albums where I very much appreciate what it accomplishes, I just wished they switched into another mode occasionally. The first 2 or 3 songs have moments of incredible power, like when the double bass just goes berserk under the perfect riff, but for a few songs after that the album just retreads. The final song stretches out a little bit and builds to something more concrete, wrapping things up nicely, but I still wish I wasn’t getting bored with the middle of the disc.
Either way, the direction they’ve found is all its own, and I like it.
Those Murder Therapy samples sound really good… they should change their name if they’re going further into this direction though, it makes them sound like bedfellows with Severe Torture or something like that.
I always thought a way to move death metal into unknown territory would be taking a dub (reggae) approach, like having 3 songs colliding with one another with drum tracks fading in and over, connecting up in some weird way to form something completely awesome, though it could also end up being either a literal wall of blast beats or some dingbat would take the easy way out with a more rap/techno structure to it, then of course he would be praised as a genius (he’d have promo pictures of him wearing black plastic framed glasses and probably a sweater). done right it would be an intoxicating whirlwind, maybe if one could make a music chamber with many tracks floating about as such and you can navigate your way through it with some hologram controls resembling some hr gigerish artwork instead of the artist mapping it out for you.
THAT is the future of death metal, for now I’ll take well written post 94 “advances” free death metal played with heart and spirit. I don’ think I like any of the bands mentioned in this article, I’ll be the one guy at the Maryland Death Fest this year going “so fucking what” during Neurosis
Or I could say the future of death metal already came and went, it was Demilich – Nesphite from 1993!
I’d personally like to see metal take on influences from various other genres in a more integrated sense. The trend has been experimentation with novelty while towing the line rather than the creation of what I perceive as something new and unique, though still with an emphasis on holistic compositional technique. I think of Yakuza in particular, who was praised often for their progressive/Asian influence bent; however, I’ve never been very fond of it. It seemed so detached, too concerned with conformity and showboating (to metal’s fans) rather than trailblazing.
There have been bands of this kind LONG before Ulcerate, mixing up ‘post’-elements with death metal. Just think of RUNE (Willowtip) YEARS ago! This is nothing new to the scene but rather trendy (still NOT bad, in case of Ulcerate just brilliant) these days in black and death metal.
Boring. This is the future? No thanks.
Ulcerate def. have their moments. I listened to more of it than I do most “new” bands and I wasn’t totally bored. Kinda reminds me of a death metal version of YOB. The machine gun drum sound is obnoxious, the vocals are kinda whatever and I wish the production was more organic sounding but it’s alright. One of the riffs in the second track sounds alot like The Melvins ‘The Bit’.
@ Saladin- Rune blew my mind at a show in 2004(?). Underrated band for sure!
I always thought Immolation, but I guess for the same reasons you could say Neurosis. Interesting perspective. Also, great band.
One thing I find interesting about Ulcerate is that they are from New Zealand…and NO ONE cares about them down here, NZ metal is very much in the Pantera/Lamb of God camp or in the metalcore camp, depending on which city you live in. Which is weird given that they are pretty much doing something that hasnt been done before. They never tour either.
@ RARF, listen to the first Scorn album, Vae Solis for a metal/dub mashup
I was initially underwhelmed by Everything Is Fire, but it has grown on me over time. I still don’t really pick particular tracks out, but the overall listening experience is one I enjoy greatly. I am interested to see where they go on the new one, but I don’t expect to have a clear appreciation of it for some time.
Referring to Cosmo’s point regarding tempo differences between different instruments: I have always found that to be one of the elements I particularly appreciate with Behemoth, especially Zoa Kia Cultus onward.
my opinion’s limited by my circumscribed exposure to some of the newer acts, but i did notice what (to me) seems to be a definite Neurosis influence in Blood of Kingu’s Sun in the House of the Scorpion. Like Ulcerate, it blasts frequently, but the drums do yield to expansive (rather than frantic) riffage on occasion, similar to Neurosis’ Floydian tendencies.
When I toured Ulcerate around Australia last year and they were thinking about the new songs Neurosis and Cult of Luna were bands that were influencing their thinking. Atmosphere is the main element to Ulcerate and fierce independence. EIF and TDOA are two excellent releases
@ W A McMurdo
Ulcerate DO, in fact, tour. http://www.christchurchmusic.org.nz/files/u761/Ulcerate.jpg
And perhaps you should dig a little harder before you dismiss NZ metal as LoG/Pantera/metalcore wannabes.
Diocletian? Witchrist? Malevolence? Dissolution? Exordium Mors? Dying of the Light? I could go on…
with murder therapy though there is little/no death metal in the promo we got in fact i’d say it has nothing to do with death metal. the vocals aren’t death metal-ish at all and there is no blasting to be found that i’ve heard thus far. i don’t see or hear them being anything like ulcerate. if you have heard the band Hacride they are much like them in my opinion.
As far as ideas about the future of metal in general go, I tend more towards the Hegelian. Those who strike out boldly on their own and do genuinely weird work (that czral/maniac record comes to mind, as does some of the stuff by Virus/Ulver/Ved Buens Ende) always run the risk of simply falling out of consideration as “metal” at all; the communityis aggressively insular, seemingly bent on lopping off new, living branches and (pathetically, in the sense of pathos) lovingly tending to those long dead and ossified. Somewhere between these two things, you have your Portals and your Mitochondrions and your Deathspell Omegas, which have confronted the prospect of working within the constraints of a recognizable style and doing something genuinely new and interesting. Neurosis and Immolation have quietly been doing this for twenty years, and though recently both bands have found greater fulfillment in careful and thorough exploration of the territory they discovered years ago, they still manage to surprise.
That said, I think Terra Tenebrosa might be the future of metal.
Ooh I didnt read Jason’s comment. Hacride’s another good example, as well as some of the other Vendlus stuff (V:28 springs to mind as a particular favorite without any real cognates I can readily recall, also that was a lot of words beginning with r).
Killer article.After listening to ulcerate i was really confused how to explain it to fellow music lovers and also wondered if there are other bands doing some new shit.Thanks
I found nothing original at all in this album. Some drumming parts were cool, but its boring in general. Looks like you inserted a few ideas from Waking Life into the last paragraph of the review. This is definitely not the future of death metal or in fact any metal