It's a rare and heartless city that makes you choose between death metal
shows on a Saturday night. At the same time Ulcerate were playing Saint
Vitus in Brooklyn, hometown heroes Suffocation were doing a show at
Blackthorn 51 in Queens. Not that it was a hard choice for me: Though I
love classic Suffocation, their last album was a dog and Ulcerate's
Vermis was one of the most important records of 2013. Why wallow in lazy nostalgia for death's past when given a chance to see a glimpse of the genre as it's yet to be?
I looked forward to checking out
Inter Arma
- mostly to see if they were the band I heard on a Relapse podcast a
few years back that I sort of really liked (it's hard to tell since
there have been a been a great many sludgy doom bands on Relapse between
then and now). By unceremoniously dropping trou and changing into his
shorts onstage, drummer T.J. Childers ensured the audience would have
one memorable moment at least (or maybe the line to the bathroom at
Saint Vitus was just that long). Inter Arma were at their best when
their songs threatened to go on forever, like one long cosmic Hawkwind
jam topped with their singer's bug eyed intensity, black metal
screeches, and Celtic Frost grunts. After a while, the repetition became
hypnotic. At the end of their set, Childers swung around a giant tree
branch - a visual metaphor for his caveman presence that worked on
multiple levels.
Teddy
Roosevelt had an aphorism about big sticks, but in my experience true
power rarely has to advertise itself so shamelessly. Though both Inter
Arma and the night's headliner are bands driven by alpha drummers, the
former was all raging id, whilst
Ulcerate
were cold, calculated, and meticulous in their destruction. As random
and chaotic as their records might seem, seeing the band in action
illustrated that nothing they do is by accident - songs from
Vermis,
Destroyers of All and
Everything is Fire were performed with precision, curated by drummer
Jamie Saint Merat from behind
his impressive array of cymbals. It's no wonder that he's already being
talked about in the same reverential tone as John Longstreth and Pete
Sandoval. Anyone who felt qualms over missing Suffocation need not have
worried: Ulcerate is the real deal. The future of death metal is here,
and it doesn't have to carry a big stick to make waves.
