Maiden Priest : Ulcerate – Shrines of Paralysis

Ulcerate makes a kind of music that makes you run out of superlatives. Death metal has come a long way from the primitive ways of early Death to dissonant tonalities of Gorguts and technical poly-rhythms of Meshuggah. This 3 piece New Zealand based band manages to capture all of those and offer much more to the ever-growing platter of extreme metal. Ulcerate is widely described as a Technical Death Metal band and that classification can be misleading, there is so much difference between them and a band like say Necrophagist or Nile. There are no guitar solos, no self indulgent instrumental 'epics', instead there is this undeniable psychedelic atmosphere, the extraterrestrial horror that should be heard to gain credence.

Shrines of Paralysis, is their fifth album, my favorite and relatively (very relatively!) their most accessible. Their second opus Everything is Fire is widely considered their best, but I tried that album, except the title track, the songs never won me over. Shrines of Paralysis dials back the dissonance the band is famous for and incorporates more melody in the songwriting but it is still progressive and technical as always with 6 songs exceeding the 7 minute mark. The artwork perfectly captures the essence of the album, the ecdysis of preconceived notions within us and a call for something that is more primal and pure.

Things start of with the fastest and shortest song on the album Abrogation, there is no mellow or ambient introduction, the song puts you right into the middle of chaos. The vocals are suffocating, spaced out and drenched in reverb, the aural equivalent of a floating mist amidst dense woods, an approach best exemplified on Blackwater Park by Opeth (even-though their bassist and vocalist Paul Kelland is not as discernible as Åkerfeldt). The violence gets to an abrupt stop at around 3 minute mark in a true Ulcerate fashion which at times is most disturbing than the parts before it. This album is designed to taken as a whole as the songs blend into each other creating a cohesive and seamless whole. The transition between Yield to Naught and There Are No Saviours is so smooth that it may seem as one track if you are not paying attention. Michael Hoggard runs his fingers all over the fretboard and some of his riffs are dare I say 'hummable' but it's as bleak and oppressive as ever, never settling to a pattern to make you feel comfortable, even coming close to a guitar solo on Extinguished Light during its outro.

The real star of the show is however their drummer Jamie Saint Merat. Drumming in extreme metal has become passable and uninspired over the years. It's difficult to distinguish one drummer from another and thanks to the modern production techniques the drums sound so replaced and precise that you know longer feel that an actual human is playing them. Anaal Nathrakh and Slugdge have released critically acclaimed albums with programmed drums, even Meshuggah released Nothing and Catch Thirtythree with drums programmed by Tomas Haake himself.

Merat distinguishes himself from plethora of blast beat happy drummers by his ingenious use of cymbals. He is as technical as any other drummer out there but he is recognizable with his patterns and tone. Check out the drum play-through video of Extinguished Light to know what I mean, when the band goes through the slow 'ambient' passages he textures them with creative fills and cymbal flourishes.

The highlight of this album is undoubtedly Extinguished Light, the song can suck light out of the Universe. The album reach its emotional zenith towards the end of this song between these two verses

"....In the face of all in reversal

they were all worthless

Pitiful and hopeless

Extinguish this light which befell us

we have proven to be unworthy

Extinguish this light which befell us

Pitch black."

The words "Extinguish this light which befell us" are growled with such conviction and passion that it will make Chuck Schuldiner proud and the last song is thoughtfully titled End the Hope, it's not End of Hope mind you. Reversion is the central theme of the album and it hovers around from the artwork to final word on the final song.

"....End the hope

end the veneration

annul the monolith to which we give rise

total reversion"

Shrines of Paralysis is not the kind of album that you can listen on a sunny day, you have to be prepared for it and it needs time to grow on you. There is one flaw however, I may not be the biggest campaigner against the so called 'Loudness War' but this album is loud, it's a shame that such dynamic music didn't get a dynamic master. Jamie Saint Merat himself produced this album, maybe this was his 'vision', this is the way he wants us to consume, who am I to judge?

Ulcerate is an acquired taste, it needs time and patience from the listener. The music by very nature is unapproachable and disturbing, but it deserves more time and attention from you than anything that is producing heavy music today.

Shrines of Paralysis is available for purchase via Relapse Records.