Puppet of Destruction

When I first spun this, I soon felt the urge to check out the liner notes. "OK, so where does it say the name of the singer, and is it Steve Zetro Souza?" When the singer turned out to not be Zetro, this record by Ultimatum suddenly seemed a bit weird, being so eerily similar.

By many accounts you could call Ultimatum an Exodus clone. However, this is actually a biblically guided band, in contrast to Exodus who only borrowed their band name from said book. Yes, Ultimatum is a distinctly Christian band, with liner notes packed with quotations from religious sources, as well as "thank yous" to god, Jesus, their church, et cetera.

I bought this some time ago for 8 bucks at the Norwegian store Neseblod, which is pretty far from being a purveyor of Christianity (neither am I), mostly because I had a vague recollection of the name Ultimatum floating around. (Incidentally, the name is shared with Australian and Canadian bands, of which I recommend both.) Also, the album cover has a decent motive and colouring. It reminded me of Atrophy's Socialized Hate, so only positive vibes on the visual side of things.

When I referred to Exodus earlier, I mostly meant Ultimatum's vocals and guitar tone, but Exodus also has a considerable strand of slower songs, and Ultimatum traverses the same landscape. Puppet of Destruction consists of mid- to low-tempo thrash, seemingly inspired by the groove metal prevalent during the early-to-mid-90s. The songs are groovy and chuggy without exception, though without straying from thrash metal. (Which is commendable given that thrash had gone pretty far off the radar in 1998!) The music is not meant to get you geared or pumped like groove or hardcore. The songwriting seems more geared towards the contemplative, especially given the religious nature of the lyrics.

If you pay attention to the lyrics, that is. If not, an important element of the band's output is probably lost, and the songs end up sounding quite samey. If they ever change the tempo, it's usually to play even slower. Above all I refer to "Cross Hope" with its dragged-out guitar strokes and reverbed chorus.

Thus, after listening to Puppet of Destruction I often feel the need to whip out something like Cross Examination's Menace II Sobriety, just to get a dose of Ultimatum's polar opposite. As the title of the review suggests, this is no masterpiece, but was nonetheless pretty listenable for a 1998 record.