Band: Ulcerate
Title: The Destroyers Of All
Label: Willowtip Records
Distribution: Hammerheart Records
Release date: March 7th 2011
Review: CD

Auckland, New Zealand-based Ulcerate were formed at the beginning of this millennium. And to be honest: I didn’t like them that much in the first half of the former decade, yet as from the Candlelight-release Everything Is Fire on (2009) I really am into this band.
The trio (Paul Kelland-b, v; Michael Hoggard-g, and Jamie Saint Merat-d) recently signed to Dutch Willowtip Records (under licence of Hammerheart Records, if I’ve been informed correctly) for the release of the third full length studio album, The Destroyers Of All, which differs a lot from any former recording, yet with just the same characteristics to put their own stamp on this brutal and intensive kind of Death Metal.
Former albums Of Fracture And Failure (Neurotic Records) and Everything Is Fire (Candlelight Records) brought an ultra-heavy symbiosis of Blast-Death and Tech-Grind (the first being somewhat uninspired, the sophomore album being of a superb quality), but this time the approach differs a lot. The album still contains its typical Blast-eruptions and Grind-attacks, but The Destroyers Of All is SLUDGE! Still being Death Metal-based, Ulcerate created the most droning and sludgy sound – this could have been a Relapse-effort – and in spite of this important change, it sounds as if the band performs this specific kind of extremity for years. Many parts are lightning-fast, but more than before, the album consists of slower moments as well. ‘Slower’, I wrote, not ‘softer’! That’s a huge difference, because this material is even harsher and heavier than before!
The album is less guitar-driven this time, but focused on somewhat haunting and bleak structures (which does give the whole a somewhat blackened and funereal atmosphere), and it seems that the drum patterns have been highlighted consciously – which is a good thing to do, because Jamie is one of the strongest drummers from the South Pacific, probably (not that a know so many drummers from that area). Besides, it is a wonderful contradiction: doomish guitar riffs versus high-speed drum patterns…
The production is the most heavy one to date as well. The sound is overwhelming, extremely powerful and asphyxiating, and this too fits wonderfully to the Sludge / Death Majesty of The Destroyers Of All. All right, it does sound dense and oppressively suffocating, but in case obscurity is a welcome challenge: check this out!

90/100

Ivan Tibos.