| CD REVIEW Ulcerate |
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Band: Ulcerate Ulcerate debuted in 2007 with Of Fracture And Failure (Neurotic Records), but this album couldn’t convince me completely. This second studio album, however, stands for a huge progression within the band’s musical history. Everything Is Fire lasts for fifty minutes and brings the same kind of Grindcore / Death Metal, but simply better. First of all, the songs have more draft. Almost all compositions have an additional mathematic-technical intelligence, without that enervating and exaggerated over-mixed hooking and breaking (a sickness many bands suffer from nowadays). Besides, several tracks contain the nicest tempo-changes and experimental intermezzos. Secondly, the performance is much better. On Of Fracture And Failure I missed some kind of cohesion, but Everything Is Fire shows a less clinical band. The details are better worked out, and so are the different lead- and rhythm elements. And tertio the sound and production: clean but not over-polished, safe but not cheap, and more ‘complete’ than Of Fracture …. The average duration of the tracks is pretty long, at least for Grind/Death-stuff (between 5:23 and 7:52 minutes), and that’s a risk, but Ulcerate easily succeed to keep these sonic assaults interesting. Unexpected yet sometimes surprising tempo-changes, technical whirlwind guitars, devastating drum patterns, pounding bass lines and rough grunts, some experiments and a weird symbiosis of emotions and chaos, recorded to please every open-minded Death / Blast / Grind freak! 84/100 Ivan Tibos. |