#i was more concerned with my inability to figure out the volume of a sphere than what two f1 drivers were up too

[fiveredlights]

i was truly thinking why i am so enamoured with max and daniel together as a pairing and i’ve come to the conclusion that they were designed to fail as friends. like they were in such different places in their lives/career that in a time where friendships between teammates were destined to implode, they never really did? like on track obviously they had their many many many battles, but it never affected their friendship in the long run. they always come back together. like that is genuinely crazy to me. i just think they’re neat.

[corpseplayer-blog]

ULCERATE

For Over 16 years New Zealand’s Ulcerate have been pushing the boundaries of death metal, morphing their sound into a swirling vortex of complex structures and pitch black atmospherics . Not only have they become one of the most respected bands in the genre, but have begun to define the modern 'tech' death metal sound as their latest album "Shrines of Paralysis" proves beyond all reasonable doubt.  With all this in mind I spoke to drummer Jamie Saint Merat to find out more...

(Interview first published in 2017)

Being from New Zealand, there must be a certain amount of restriction with your ambitions as a touring band. Is it quite restrictive being geographically isolated when it comes to gigging/touring etc?

It certainly has been in the past in terms of structuring how we will approach touring. But these days we decided to take the reigns and book our own shows internally working with our own tour manager, and it seems we have enough of a profile that we can safely cover travel costs. But that's only been something that's been achievable in the last 5 years or so. The biggest hurdle for touring these days is that we all have careers outside of the band, so we can only take a certain amount of time off work per year, so we need to be very selective in what we take on.

Your new album is denser, darker and more elaborate than anything you have released so far. It must have been quite a challenge tackling the writing process this time around. How did you approach the song writing for “Shrines of Paralysis”? Was a generally a positive experience or did it prove to be more difficult than that on previous albums?

I think all of our albums have been positive experiences, but they're also incredibly fatiguing. 'Shrines' was no different. But once we established a solid routine and some sort of cohesive direction the process started to smooth out and the material came a lot more naturally. The song-writing approach from the outset was to do away with any superfluous dissonant material and move towards a more 'classic' style of melody, while obviously still retaining the core of the sound. A perhaps subtle shift for listeners, but a significant one for ourselves. Rhythmically and structurally we haven't deviated from what I feel is our signature style, particularly in a drumming sense - still a lot of linear playing, odd meter and challenging stickings, but as with the arrangements we like to get things sounding as seamless as possible. All of our music has been navigated through gut instinct.

Where on earth do you even start when writing your music? Are you a band where everything is created in the rehearsal space, or do people come in with full songs and you each figure out your parts independently?

All the instrumentation is constructed by guitarist Michael and myself, lyrics are handled by vocalist/bassist Paul. Riff and melodic concepts are first drafted at my place with practice amps and practice pads, where we'll draft and formulate ideas without concern for instrument tones or battling volume. We'll usually end up with 2 to 3 parts per session, which we'll then take to the rehearsal room and begin focusing more on tempo, dynamics and rhythmic interplay between drums and guitars. I'll form the drum parts out of improvisation once we've bedded down an overall direction for any given riff. So it's very much step by step. Once we have a collection of sections we'll start arranging, which involves a ton of recording and reviewing. Counterpoint guitar, bass and vocal material is written via multi-track demos, which allows us to sculpt the sonic picture in totality.

Can you tell me about the concept/s around the lyrics and album’s title? Is there an underlying theme that flows through the entire album, or is every song an entity unto itself?

The title "Shrines of Paralysis" represents the species' apathy and inabilities in dealing with self-imposed catastrophe until it's beyond the point of reconcilliation. In general the lyrics speak of mankind's arrogance and narcissism, and failure to respect our irrelevance in the broadest possible sense. But it's not a concept album by any stretch of the imagination.

The musicianship displayed on “Shrines of Paralysis” is staggering. I am a drummer myself and find it mesmerizing just how intricate, layered and technically brilliant the parts on this album are! With this in mind, is it difficult for you to showcase and deliver this new material in a live context? Or on the contrary, do you feel it transposes better in a live environment?

Thanks, appreciate that. It's not difficult to execute live - it's obviously demanding material but we've been doing this a long time now so I'm playing well within my comfort range. I think our live performances and how we capture the album performances is one in the same, so long as the venue we're playing is adequately equipped in terms of acoustics what you'll hear live is very close to the album sound. Which is a compliment we often receive, that it sounds as good, or better than the albums. Which is great, it's what we've always striven to be - a band where there is no divide between the studio and live setting. There's nothing worse than seeing a band butcher something live which is outstanding on record.

The “Avant-Garde Death Metal” tag is something that is used time and time again to describe your music. While it may be an accurate description, do you at all feel hindered by being pigeon-holed in this way?

I am well beyond the point of caring these days!

There are many bands pursuing this more unconventional approach to metal music of late, which has proven to be quite the winning formula for the vast majority of death metal fans. With the likes of the mighty Deathspell Omega, Gorguts, Portal etc already firmly established within this particular strand of metal music, do you find it is hard to make your music stand out in amongst this growing sub-genre?

Not really - I know that we have something very unique to ourselves, even if it's 'better' or 'worse' than some other band inhabiting the same sonic sphere. We've never thought of music as a competition, it's a personal expression of thought processes, life experiences and influences - and if you can convey that (which I think we've succeeded at, at this point in time) then that's all that matters. I can safely say on behalf of our peers (a lot of whom we know personally) that all this 'who's better band A or band B' bullshit is just completely irrelevant when it comes to listening to or creating music for us.

That above said, there are still many fans clinging on to that old school death metal sound that just will not deviate. A lot of these people see the progression of death metal as some sort of diabolical sin, where technical ability is more important than writing a good song. How do you personally see the progression of death metal and do you feel it is important that this music constantly evolves?

You get this hard-line way of thinking in all styles of music. Or art in general for that matter. Music absolutely needs to evolve, but it needs to be cognizant of the stylistic and thematic traditions. So yeah, there's a lot of junk 'death metal' out there where the 'death' element is completely ignored. There's a lot of modern bands that I fail to see where their influences even come from, and what they produce is very safe, sterile Pro Tools sounding horseshit. Disgusting second-rate clean pop choruses have no place in extreme metal of any kind (and I love a lot of great pop music).

In terms of production “Shrines of Paralysis” sounds a lot more earthly and organic than your previous offerings, particularly with the drum sound. How did you approach the production side of things this time around? Did you have definite ideas of how you wanted this to sound prior to the recording sessions, or did it just kind of happen?

I always approach our production side of things in a similar fashion - let the music itself dictate how things are going to be conveyed. We've always been striving to convey a very 'live' sound, or at least extremely authentic to how we actually sound playing in a room. In terms of the drums, this base is laid from the performance aspect - I like to keep things as raw as possible, so only a few takes per song with zero editing and 'fixing' of mistakes. In terms of tones, I keep the drums as wide open as possible in terms of muffling. In terms of sound replacement, only the kick drums utilise a sample for frequency augmentation - the sound on the album is 60/40 kick mic and sample. Everything else is 100% mic only. From there up the signal chain is incredibly simple, one SM57 covers each channel of strings, we like to find the tone in the room rather than EQing it do death afterwards. And we're all pretty opposed to the concept of re-amping, we like to to commit to tones and performances. Perfection is not something we're seeking, honesty and personality is much more important.

Earlier this year you toured with the fantastic Zhrine and Phobocosm through North America. How has the support been so far and are you hearing a lot of positives from fans of how this new material transposes in the live arena?

The feedback from a live standpoint has been incredible. Every tour we embark on seems to grow things more and more, and there's a palpable sense that the 'Shrines' material goes down really well live. It's certainly enjoyable for us to perform night to night.

Just how important is playing live for Ulcerate? What is it about performing this music you enjoy the most? Is this where you feel more at home or do you prefer being in the studio more?

Live touring is the icing on the cake for us. It brings back the ritualistic or meditative quality that you first feel when composing the material. Endless rehearsing, while still enjoyable, doesn't create the adrenalin rush of playing live, and I think we all find walking the tightrope of executing this material live fairly addictive. In terms of feeling at home, they're just completely different experiences, 2 sides of the same coin. For me you can't have one without the other.

Can you tell me something about the artwork for this release and what it represents?

It's purely an aesthetic depiction of how I visually relate to this collection of songs. It's the by-product of me absorbing the music and lyrics over a year-long period and interpreting it via a visual medium. _How important are the visual aspects of Ulcerate? Do you feel it is important that your listeners get the full-package, so to speak both with your album packaging and when you play live? It all goes hand-in-hand, and a poor effort on either side will really drag the overall quality of a release down. I think to hold the physical product in your hands when listening to an album is incredibly important.