ULCERATE – Cutting The Throat Of God

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://www.ulcerate-officia.com/

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? – Epicurus

As soon as I received the new Debemur Morti Productions download of the brutal progressive death metallers’ Ulcerate’s 7th (!) full length morbidly entitled Cutting The Throat Of God²⁰²⁴, (released on June 14th) I decided right there and then that I will be as unbiased as I could be. It isn’t easy because ever since the first time I heard their sophomore masterpiece Everything Is Fire²⁰⁰⁹ which, at the time, I called the greatest death metal album of all time (in the now recently reactivated Imphotep online zine) I immediately recognized what precious (still though then uncut and unpolished) diamond I had on my hands, committing myself to reviewing everything they would release from then on while avoiding the prejudice or bias that sometimes accompanies the awestruck reviewer when he or she encounters a genuine musical revelation. This is why the following The Destroyers Of All²⁰¹¹ (their last one for Willowtip Records) was a bit of disappointment and I rated it 5.5/6, because, as I stated in my review (written before I stopped using abundant profanity in my writing inspired by the ex-ET reviewer Matt Coe,) a great reviewer will not hesitate to pinpoint flaws even in the work of his or hers most cherished artists. Then, there was the glowing 6/6 review in Imhotep of their next masterpiece (then on Relapse Records) Vermis²⁰¹³ (review sadly now lost somewhere in the world wide web) followed by the then, absolute pinnacle of their craft, Shrines Of Paralysis²⁰¹⁶ (the last one for Relapse Records.) And then Ulcerate moved to Debemur Morti Productions to release my personal album of the year 2020, Stare Into Death and Be Still²⁰²⁰, which I found their absolute greatest achievement…again. Yet a careful reader of my review will fish out the part where I admit that “I may have exaggerated the scores of Vermis and Shrines because both had their shortcomings as did the ones before it”, so, how does Stare fare after 4 years? Still perfect. Have I been infected with that experimenter bias I mention above? In case I have, I decided that should there be any aspect of the new album that prevented it from getting a perfect score I would point out, showcase it and make an example out of it. It is remarkably different from its 6 predecessors in many ways, even more than Stare was, most notably because of its immediate accessibility. No, they didn’t record an equivalent of Megadeth’s (excellent) Youthanasia¹⁹⁹⁴, far from it, but, nevertheless, melodies pour from every pore of that album in such perfect pacing, harmony and balance with utter brutality that those 7 (again, not a coincidence) tracks just have nothing to add or take away from. Everything here has its proper purpose and place as if to belie the (purposeful?) undoing of it by the intended concept, to which we now turn.

Cutting the throat of God. We are, after all, still, a death metal band, even if no longer just a death metal band. We have married it to some stoner and black metal (the element present before to some degree) some hardcore and, as of recent, post-metal. We may be getting more melodic and memorable (if not catchy) but we are still pretty brutal all around, so the lyrics must match it. I mean, would anyone really want to cut God’s throat? Well, I know some who would love to at least punch Him in the face so the aggression is definitely there. You can do either one to gods (the inferior plural) but not to GOD (the supreme singular,) and I think Ulcerate know, once you assume the existence of such an One, it’s impossible to kill Him. Obviously, then, it is in a pejorative sense, a metaphor.

Arguably the finest writer ever, Fyodor Dostoevsky once said, “Without God, all things are permitted” by the mouth of his character, Ivan Karamazov in “Brothers Karamazov”. Never strangers to nihilistic and agnostic concepts, Ulcerate, who, notabene, have been just those three musketeers since 2008: Jamie Saint Merat (drums, songwriting, production,) Michael Hoggard (guitars) and Paul Kelland (2005-bass, 2008-vocals,) had always entertained the idea that we, humans, are totally alone in the dispassioned universe that could care less if we live or die, which is actually no different from the deism of the two doubting Thomases Paine and Jefferson, without whose writings there will never have been the United States Of America, which prides itself on religious and irreligious inclusion but is currently, partly slipping into religious extremism the likes of which we have not seen since the Dark Ages. Disillusioned with the (unbeknownst to them) unbiblical Christian dogma that still plagues mainstream Christianity that marries two irreconcilable doctrines: 1. that, by his cross, death and his resurrection by God, Jesus Christ ushered in an immediate golden age his God and Father had promised to Israel and 2. that God Almighty is in charge and total control of the Earth, they have simply concluded that the Bible is not of God but God had created the universe and then departed to His heavenly abode for it to fend for itself, with every man, woman and child doing whatever feels right. Jefferson, for his part, even wrote his own version of the Gospels known as The Jefferson Bible, having painstakingly removed any trace of Jesus as a Son of God. Why? Because the Son Of God acting to rescue mankind is God caring about what happens to mankind, which is contrary to deism. In any case, this doctrinal confusion preached by so many well and not so well meaning preachers today who still have the audacity to call their deity the very essence of love, is why we have so much agnosticism and atheism in art, especially in music. The musicians are neither immoral nor nonspiritual but proponents and practitioners of logical thinking best reflected by the Epicurian quote I opened this review with. Ulcerate, heretofore, seeing the universe as a godless entity, now ponders a different perspective: if not of God whence our morality? Without God, morality becomes subjective, making it difficult to define anything as truly unfair, says Johnny Barnes of Spirit & Truth.

But maybe we should be asking a different question: where are the limits of our morality? It’s a well-known fact that neither does religious education guarantee a moral citizen nor does lack thereof inhibit morality. A person may get great moral upbringing in agnostic and even atheistic family but be morally skewed in a religious one, in a sectarian environment. We know of multiple examples of religious schools teaching bigotry, misogyny and intolerance for anything different from their narrow-minded vision of what constitutes morality. So morality isn’t a matter of religious faith but proper education. Yet, if so, where do we get our standards from? If we assume that God makes no difference then the highest measure of man is…man. So our morality is do good to others and others will good to you. Simple, isn’t it? Except we all see how that works in our increasingly godless society. Everyone only takes care of themselves and their own offspring, at best. At worst, people don’t even care for their loved ones, living lives for themselves, in themselves, by themselves. Sure, we fear the courts (especially fines!) jails, punishment from authorities, even as we observe how increasingly corrupted those authorities are becoming. And then something happens to one of our own and the authorities do nothing, or worse, suppress it. We, believers and non-believers, take matters in our own hands and serve our own justice, The Punisher style. What have we become? Gods. Since we don’t expect justice to come any time soon so we deal it ourselves thereby making ourselves gods, and not surprisingly, after our own hearts, in the image of our own vain imaginations.

That’s how I interpet the Ulceratian concept of cutting the throat of God. It is impossible to kill God and Ulcerate knows it so they, again, clearly must mean it in pejorative sense, similar to the philosopher’s Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous declaration in “Will To Power”: “God is dead. We have killed Him.” Why have we killed Him? To take His place at the top. To be accountable to no one but ourselves. So, since we appoint ourselves our own judge and jury and advocate, we killed God so that we can be lawless. And look around, look in our churches, in our governments, do we not see lawless gods as far as the eye can see? I think this is precisely why the closing eponymous track is the most tragic thing Ulcerate has ever penned, because, on one hand, there’s freedom in self-government, but, on the other, there’s incredible loneliness and burden of our own humanity that keeps asking the same unanswered questions: What am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? How long will I be here? What’s the God-damned point of it all?

Having established the lyrical concept and addressed the possible philosophical aspects thereof, we are in the right position to delve into the music. And the music is, as I wrote before, the most balanced of all Ulcerate’s albums. This album’s pacing, the rising and falling of extremes, reminds me of an awakening of some sleeping giant who is mildly interested in exercising his wrath, at first, so the opener “To Flow Through Ashen Hearts” (the 2nd video single) is not only the relatively shortest track, but also the least brutal, as if the giant was just teasing he was about to do something to them who had dared to awaken him. Or we can compare it to the ocean tides, perhaps a better simile? The effect is that we get the immediate sense of melody and variety, the ebb and flow of it, right off the bat and then Ulcerate almost effortlessly if briefly goes into the death metal of Shrines at the brutality and the intensity that was mostly missing from Stare. Yet it is here also that we find simple and extended moments of ambient melancholy that brings Destroyers to mind, except here they are truly beautiful and highly reminiscent of The Cure at their most ethereal, which then creates a shock and awe effect whenever they get brutally interrupted by the death metal part. Because this track is structurally both so familiar yet so different from anything they have done before, I initially dismissed it as inferior, especially since its immediate follower, “The Dawn Is Hollow” (the first video single) is such a throwback to Shrines and Vermis. However, having given it more turns, I concluded that it was on par with the rest.

One of the favorites, “Further Opening The Wounds” made me think of Emperor for the opening riff, then Immolation and Behemoth for the 2nd one, and, finally, My Dying Bride, in the more melodic moments. The biggest surprise and the hardest track to get into was “Transfiguration In And Out Of Worlds” with the opening country-like riff recalling as much Glorior Beli as Paradise Lost’s “Another Desire” but then turning almost unmelodically brutal, something a bad production could render an epic failure, which shows Saint Merat’s mastery of Ulcerate’s dynamics developed over the years, including, of course, the mastery of his own instrument, drums, at any possible pace, to say nothing of the excellent mix by Cult Of Luna guitarist and drummer Magnus Lindberg. In the raw black metal chaos of “To See Death Just Once” (the 3rd video single) we catch the antitheocratic rebellion as they call for condemnation of “the sanctuary” and obstruction of “all new beginnings and the reverence of inhumanity avowed”, highly and eerily reminiscent of Trivium’s “Declaration” to “burn the scriptures, bury the governing, free yourself, break the structures, declare freedom,” while “Undying As An Apparition”, with its “faster but not really” paradox rhythms, the ambient transitions breaking up the brutality (that hearkens all the way back to Fire) complexity and melodic dissonant chaos three times, maybe their most complete representative track, but it’s the closing eponymous, easily their most melodic and most accessible creation, that truly drops my jaw for the craft where everything is always melodic yet ever changing, different yet the same (to quote Dark Tranquillity’s “Therein.”)

For that melody (and this could be said of the whole album) Ulcerate is no longer just borrowing early Machine Head stylings (although those are more abundant than ever) but also late 90s Katatonia, which makes for a very compelling mix. This track you can actually hum all the way through although it’s still death metal (which reminds me of when I hear people actually sing along to Slayer’s live solos.) There’s also lots of repetition and a genuine chorus appears to emphasize the dilemma, and another thing that is a first, there’s a clear build up to the final crescendo as the very distinct ending melody, while in progress, ushers in an undermelody that slowly reprises the fast riff from the opener for a continuity (something not noticeable upon first 3 listens) and finally, a resounding STRUM (so much melody in it!) as it all fades away as if Ulcerate spent their whole strength and just expired, somewhat reminiscent of Destroyer’s ending, for “the passage to atonement has vanished, true repentance was never in reach.” In short, when they are brutal and extreme they are really brutal and extreme, but when they are melodic and catchy they are now obviously and unashamedly so, something they started to show on Stare but is on full display on Cutting, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier.

Ulcerate had started humbly as Bloodwreath (2000-2002) and, after the name change, turned their brutal technical hardcorish death metal from Of Fracture And Failure²⁰⁰⁷ into something unique and unpredictable on Everything Is Fire²⁰⁰⁹, and then, experimenting with more melody and different dynamics on The Destroyers Of All²⁰¹¹ unleashed masterpiece after masterpiece of symphonies that defied confines of brutal death metal, becoming more progressive, more extreme and more unpredictable, burning through three labels in pursuit of a sound that can be taken for anything but Ulcerate. Brutal death metal, progressive death metal, post-metal, we can slap multiple tags on them but Cutting The Throat Of God²⁰²⁴ is a definitive album from a band that can only be referred to as Ulcerate metal. And, as 4 years ago, album of the year.