Stare into Death and Be Still

“Stare into Death and Be Still” is Ulcerate doing what Ulcerate does best: making aimless, monotonous, pretentious music. Ulcerate is one of the few bands that I am unable to love or at the very least appreciate. I have listened to all of their albums multiple times and hated each one. I am not a masochist, just desperate to see what people see in the band. I bear no hard feelings against those who love Ulcerate, but I am tired of seeing an echo-chamber of reviews that consists of nothing but praise for these critical darlings.

It is hard to discuss songs when discussing Ulcerate because I am hesitant to call any of the tracks on “Stare into Death and Be Still” songs. There is no purpose to the arrangements. There are no highlights to speak of. There is no build up or release of tension. The only thing separating the tracks are the titles. I can appreciate chaos when it is well-constructed. Bands like “Portal” are a perfect example of how to achieve this goal. All of the songs on “Stare into Death and Be Still” are too long because they feel too long. Listen to the first 20 seconds or so of a song and you have an idea of what the song will continue to sound like for the next 5-8 minutes. “Stare into Death and Be Still” is exhaustively one-note. (The inexpressive vocals do the band no favors either.) Just once I was waiting for a song to take a surprising twist or turn that would shake my boredom… but it never happened.

The cult and acclaim surrounding Ulcerate and this latest release is mysterious. Here we have a band that writes death metal without any of the ingredients that potentially make death metal worth listening to. There is no melody to be found here. God forbid the band sprinkle their songs with some hooks. Riffs are apparently too mainstream, so instead the listener is left to decipher a mess of dissonance. Dissonance can be extremely interesting when it is complemented by something else. Bands like Gorguts and Immolation are masters at achieving this balance. Death metal is also interesting when it is brutal, but everything in “Stare into Death and Be Still” from the songwriting to the production seems ashamed to be remotely heavy. But what of the complexity of Ulcerate’s music? I agree that Ulcerate writes complex music, but the issue with Ulcerate is that the complexity in their songs is not a means to an end - the complexity is the end. Alas, Ulcerate falls into the trap that claims so many technical death metal bands: forgetting to write actual fucking songs.

After listening to “Stare into Death and Be Still” , as well as revisiting some of Ulcerate’s earlier albums, I am left with the impression that the band is the peak of pretension in modern death metal. They are nowhere near as experimental or avant-garde or interesting as they (or their fans) believe them to be. No doubt there are several avid metal listeners who convince themselves to like Ulcerate or are truly gullible enough to consider Ulcerate’s albums masterpieces that are “pushing the boundaries”. (Was there ever a more worn out and empty phrase as this?). Ulcerate is living in the shadow of death metal bands that are experimenting but still writing music that is enjoyable to consume - Portal, Artificial Brain, Dodecahedron, Pyrrhon, Wormed, the list goes on.