This is the seventh album from New Zealand death metal act Ulcerate.
Following on from 2016’s Shrines of Paralysis and 2020’s Stare into Death and Be Still, the mighty Ulcerate have now returned with the 58-minute Cutting the Throat of God.
Cutting the Throat of God is a dark and sinister entity. Ulcerate have developed the sound of their last record further, shaping it into these seven new monstrous songs. Manifesting as an idiosyncratic blend of death and black metal, this is the sound of a band that knows their music intimately. A record of atmospheric immensity and devastating impact, Cutting the Throat of God is not to be underestimated.
Cutting the Throat of God takes the dissonant, avant-garde, and technical aspects of Ulcerate’s death metal core and fine tunes them with increased melodic and blackened elements. This combination of impenetrable harrowing dissonance and affecting immersive emotion is very effective, and one of the reasons why this band, and this album, are so masterful. Ulcerate break down the walls of impenetrability and flood them with dynamic emotive seas that are then channelled into dissonant chasms. The end result is a series of songs that sound greater than the sum of their imposing parts.
Malevolent melody and spectral groove are delivered with seamless complementary grace. The music slithers and flows like sentient darkness, bringing a sickeningly vibrant unlife to the music that sounds just as wrong and unearthly as it does worryingly perfect. Ulcerate have discovered something unnatural on Cutting the Throat of God, and they’re harnessing it to who knows what end. There is a cosmic horror at the heart of this album, and Ulcerate are its harbingers.
Cutting the Throat of God is the direction I was hoping Ulcerate would go in after Stare into Death and Be Still. It’s a masterwork of black/death metal majesty, and a supreme artistic endeavour. Open the mysterious portal to Ulcerate’s realm and step through. You won’t regret it.
Wonderbox Metal 