Ulcer - Grant Us Death
Old School Swedeath… the Polish way. Ladies and gents, I realize there’s a plethora of bands doing the NWOOSSDM thing at the moment. Shit, even I lost count months ago. But if you only give one of these bands the time of day… well, it should probably be Demonical… But if you only give two of these bands the time of day, the second one might as well be Ulcer. Much like Demonical, this isn’t some band of wide-eyed newcomers reveling in nostalgic flesh to kill time between Walking Dead episodes. These are the guys from the mighty Deivos wrecking Heavy Metal Pedal havoc in the name of the elder gods, and you need to fucking hear it. Grant Us Death just might be the truest modern-day replica of the Sunlight sound ever achieved. It’s absolutely astounding. A time capsule instantly transporting the listener back to the glory days of ‘90 and ‘91, when Sweden’s Big 4 were launching their first wave of perennial classics, and when Tomas Skogsberg and Dan Seagrave were both extremely busy men. The dual-vocal attack of Angelfuck and D.ssipline (Blaze of Perdition, Oremus) ensures a varied approach that owes as much to Clandestine as it does to Left Hand Path. Sometimes the duo get carried away, as we’re often subjected to suspect screams of the awkward variety, and they might overdo the Matti Karki-on-“Bleed for Me” spoken bits at times. But overall, the addition of a second vocalist serves to set Ulcer apart slightly from the ever burgeoning stream. Musically, the band —rounded out by Angelfuck’s Deivos cohorts Szwed (bass), Wizun (drums), Mscislaw (guitar), and Abusiveness/Exmortum guitarist LucaSS— doesn’t always feature songwriting as memorable as their powerful sound. However, raucous highlights such as the opening 1-2-3 punch of the title track, “Devilspeed” and “Bloodpainted Salvation,” the infectious-chorus-bearing “Devitalized,” and the impossible-to-resist-throwing-the-goat-head-while-listening-to “My Lord Has Horns”— \m/ —are going to make most songs seem like filler by comparison. When they hit their stride, Ulcer are unD-beatable. Originality-seekers, let it go for 43 minutes. Auto-erotic asphyxiation shouldn’t be your only guilty pleasure.
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