3) Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God
Ulcerate isn't cosmic death metal. Over the years of featuring them on my lists I don't think I've ever figured out exactly what they are. To me they provoke a feeling of witnessing something ancient, something ritualistic, something biblical, like a plague or culture defined by human sacrifice.
On their previous record Stare into Death and Be Still I really felt like that was what I was doing while listening. Beneath the cacophony there was an unmistakable dark chasm of emptiness. I felt it trying to pull me in and consume me.
Upon hearing the name of this record I knew what I was going to get before the first spin. I knew I would be getting a much more violent record. Gone is the feeling of emptiness, replaced by a feeling of fury through apostasy. Every detail in this record bleeds of this imagery, from the engineering of the sounds themselves, sharper and more exacting, to the sustained tension one feels when witnessing a horrible disaster. Spinning this I occasionally feel overwhelmed, as if the violence is directed toward me the listener, but white knuckling through this record is a deeply rewarding experience.
Ulcerate have been at the top of their game for some time now and there's no signs of age, no indication of decline. I don't know what the next record is going to make me feel but I know it'll be something I've never felt before.
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