Ulcerate Interview (Jamie Saint Merat)

“Cutting the Throat of God” by Ulcerate is an album that focuses much more on that atmosphere of terror and darkness, where the power of Death Metal is a little more withdrawn and they give you desolate landscapes in all the songs with flavors of many extreme styles, especially with their sharp dissonances that have been the main distinction of the band since that tremendous “Vermis” (2013). An album worthy of their career and well done within its limits.  

Para leer la entrevista en español: Entrevista a Ulcerate

Metallerium: Welcome Jamie to the pages of Metallerium, it is a tremendous pleasure to talk with you about Ulcerate, this new album “Cutting the Throat of God” and many other things related to the metal world. We’ll start by asking, how are you? How was the band in recent years?  

Ulcerate: We are good, currently in preparations for Australian live shows in a few weeks, after which we’ll turn our full attention to European tour rehearsals. The last couple of years have seen us absorbed with the writing of ‘Cutting the Throat…’, so the switch in gears has been something of a welcome respite.  

Metallerium: This new album Cutting the Throat of God; came to the world after 4 years of their last album. Many bands and musicians see each album as a child, each one special in its own way. So, what makes this album special to you? And how do you work to maintain your classic sound while keeping your compositions fresh after so many years as a band?  

Ulcerate: Albums for us are all-encompassing works for sure.  They really are everything to us, they have to be - what’s the point of even existing if you have nothing at all to say, or are saying something flippant?  So, this album is the culmination of just over 2 years of almost daily work, it’s the next stage in our development of the vision of the band, and hopefully, it will over time grow to be an album that people will return to again and again, each time revealing new details. So, let’s see.  Transcendence is what we’re aiming for - a slowing of time, and a complete immersion - I feel we’ve achieved this for ourselves, and hopefully, it translates as well.  

In terms of maintaining sound and direction while also evolving - I think it has a lot to do with us holding these 2 ends of the spectrum in very high regard.  Respecting both approaches and try to find the perfect intersection.  We work as a team, with a common goal, and we don’t suffer any burnt-out personalities or ego bullshit that we have to navigate - so we have nothing to compromise on when it comes to writing music.  We’ve always had a deep respect for artists who manage to distill their identity and communication right down to the core and allow themselves to stretch the boundaries of their output - we’re really trying to do the same. So, we’ve allowed ourselves to not be hampered by genre tropes, while always paying homage to the tradition - moving too far in either direction can land you in avant-garde or throwback territory, neither of which we find particularly exciting.  

Metallerium: Talking about this album. How do you choose the name of your album? Is it random or do you try to convey something that encompasses the concept of the entire album? Also, how do you typically decide the order of the songs on an album? I feel like that’s an important aspect of the listening experience.  

Ulcerate: I wish the things we did were random!  Early in the writing sessions, we noticed we were developing a very specific atmosphere - a combination of uneasiness, sadness, and dread that was recurring in a lot of the material.  When it came time to start penning lyrics and to start thinking about how to visualize this atmosphere, from both angles Paul and I landed in a similar place - a purgatory of sorts that one arrives at after significantly rupturing your inner moral code. The sensation of when a boundary is broken (either willingly or unwillingly) and the gut feeling of dread, remorse, or abject terror of not being able to claw your way back to the prior state sinks in. This could manifest in the shallowest of ways (a compounding lie told to a friend), through to the ugliest of outward sociopathic violence.  A ‘self-replicating hell’ was my summation, and that eventually found its way to ‘Cutting the Throat of God’.  The album title needed to have a level of severity and boldness to it, and while there may be confusion around our use of metaphor (there are no Abrahamic religion references whatsoever) as soon as we hit upon it was immediately obvious that it exuded the necessary feeling.  

Metallerium: Are you always working on new music, or do you prefer to focus on it once you’ve finished touring? How do you decide when it’s time to work on new songs and a new album? It’s been almost 20 years since your debut, so now what made the right time to release a new album?  

Ulcerate: We like to give ourselves usually a good year or 18 months of breathing room after releasing an album.  We’re usually pretty exhausted, to be honest and like to let the material sit so we can gain some distance.  And touring the material helps a lot, you quickly find out what’s ‘working’ so to speak in front of an audience for a month.  It's a very visceral feedback mechanism.   

We’ll start to write when ideas start bubbling up to the surface, we never force those early stages.  In terms of timing to release this album, it’s all just predicated on activity prior to it. ‘Stare Into Death…’ was released right in the eye of the Covid pandemic, so we could never tour that properly.  We waited as long as we could until late 2021 when all of a sudden, we had a flood of writing inspiration.  So, over the following 2 years we had a stop-start flurry of activity juggling touring for ‘Stare Into Death…’ and writing ‘Cutting The Throat…’, which essentially took us through to December 2023.  

Metallerium: I remember when we talked about “Stare into Death and Be Still”; (2020) and you told me that the band doesn’t have to be labeled with the technical concept within Death Metal. What are the reasons why you don’t like being called Technical Death Metal to Ulcerate? And what would be the correct way to associate Ulcerate’s music in terms of labels?  

Ulcerate: Because labelling a subgenre by an adjective of how musically proficient it may be is a cringe-inducing humble brag that no other genre on earth deems necessary.  Maybe ‘progressive rock’, which is equally annoying!  And what even defines ‘technical’?  Technical to who?   

I’ve also never felt we fit in with other bands I’ve heard that inherit that sub-genre label, we’re just coming from a completely different place.  Our modus operandi is not to be a flashy show of chops, we use composition techniques (that span from simple to complex) to paint an atmosphere.  Sometimes yes, it can get very involved, but the end goal is not to say, ‘Look how well we play’.  That’s absurd.  

In 2024, I don’t really know what we are.  The closest descriptor I’ve heard people use that doesn’t make us squirm is ‘unorthodox death metal’.  Are we even death metal anymore?  I’m not so sure - and we gave up caring a long time ago.  My question - why does it matter?  Why does every interview touch on this, and why does every comment section devolve into people arguing over what genre bands inhabit?  

Metallerium: Another detail that I remember from a past interview we had is that you really wanted to come to Latin America, and in 2023 the band managed to make the first foray into Mexico. What was the experience of playing in a Latin country like? Did the comments you always heard and read from bands of friends come true? That said we are very passionate about listening to metal.  

Ulcerate: Mexico was amazing, enough said!  We’re fired up to return and have tentative plans for other Latin American dates for mid-late 2025.   And yes, the level of passion was refreshing and intense, with a level of mutual respect that was very enjoyable.    

Metallerium: How do you feel the reception of your fans to this new album has been so far? What have the reviews been like? Do you usually read reviews or criticism that are uploaded online and how do you take it?  

Ulcerate:  It has been overwhelming, and to be honest, expectations have been exceeded on all fronts.  It’s always a very nerve-wracking experience releasing something new, something which you’ve worked in isolation on for a number of years - and to see how it’s been globally received is weirdly validating that you’re at least on some sort of right path.  I think we’re really seeing eye-to-eye with our audience these days, and it feels like our gut instincts sort of map to what people would like to hear from us - actually quite surprising for us this far in.  

Reviews - we get sent reviews from all the publications that publish them, and we’ll read a small subset of them.  But after a while, it feels awkward and voyeuristic - the same goes for internet comments.  So, it's nice to see people saying good things, but after a while the narcissism meter goes off and it’s time to shut that shit down for good.  Regarding negative comments and reviews, it’s not healthy to read that shit, as it lodges in your psyche.  It won’t change anything you’re doing, but it’s enough to create aggravation that is completely unnecessary.  Everyone obviously has opinions, but to be privy to these opinions in such a public manner is far from natural.  

Metallerium: Returning to “Cutting the Throat of God”; and its promotion plan, what are the promotion plans you have for this album? tours, concerts, videos, etc. Are there any possibilities of seeing you in Latin America in the future?  

Ulcerate: We’ve already released 3 videos for the album, I doubt we’ll be doing any more.  Tour-wise, we’ll be in Australia in 3 weeks, Europe in Oct/Nov, Europe again in May/June, North and South America late next year.  

Metallerium: Talking a little about the history of the band, you started your path with Neurotic Records with “Of Fracture and Failure”; (2007), then you went through Willowtip Records and Relapse Records and now you are with Debemur Morti Productions. Labels that today are very well known in the metal world. How was the experience like within each label that Ulcerate was on? Are you looking at any bigger labels like Metal Blade, Century Media, Nuclear Blast, Season of Mist, etc?... Maybe they have received offers from these titans of the metal world.

Ulcerate: Debemur Morti is our home for the conceivable future.  A truly aligned, creative collaboration.  Of those larger labels you mentioned, yes, we’ve had offers from some of those listed (and others) - but again, at this stage in the game for us, it’s about an artistic alignment, not a typical record label deal.  

Regarding prior labels: 

●  Neurotic: Total parasite

●  Willowtip: Let’s just say we’re unhappy where things are at in terms of professionalism and transparency, given they still look after 2 of our earlier records

● Relapse: Utter professionalism, and total transparency - bittersweet to leave, as they wanted to further the relationship, but we felt we needed to work with a more creatively aligned partner.  

Metallerium: Speaking of a topic that always comes up in current media and many labels associate with the type of music you make; it is the word dissonant. And today we are in the third life of this extreme sound since the early 90s. Therefore, what is your point of view about this style that many call Dissonant Death Metal? Since I started hearing these ideas in the early 90s, they were only guitar techniques that were used by bands of those years and did not determine the general style of the band.  

Ulcerate: Here we are again, defining a whole genre by a composition technique.  Yes, we have a history of writing a lot of music that is inherently dissonant, we also have a lot of material that is extremely melodic, and all permutations along that spectrum.  I’ve also seen and heard people using that term where it’s inappropriate - a lot of the time challenging harmony and/or counterpoint gets labelled ‘dissonant’.  Certainly, with our newer material, which is inherently very melodic (albeit not classically melodic).  So, at some point, I just switched off.  I just don’t care; I’ve never thought about needing to label bands by such a specific compositional device. Is it good?  Then listen.  

From what I’ve heard of most bands labelled with this term, I’m feeling very fatigued with it all.  The greats that inhabited this space earlier than most (think Gorguts, Immolation, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord for example) always had a very melodic sensibility and are master songwriters.  Regardless of how much dissonance is at play, there are so many other attributes that go into making the music outstanding.  

Metallerium: We are close to finishing this interview Jamie and talking about a topic that changed the perspective of the understanding of Metal worldwide, it is social networks. As you know today, thanks to these media, Metal became more understandable and comprehensible, and even lost that sense of impact, fear, or mystery that it had during the 70s, 80s, and 90s when you talked about Brujeria and you believed that they were narcosatanists, or talking about King Diamond was thinking that he lived in a castle, or Bruce Dickinson writing lyrics to only bother conservative people, or ideas of Satanists by many Black Metal bands, etc. Now there is no mystery or curiosity that metal gave you on a general level. What is your point of view about this move away from the fear, mystery, or curiosity that metal had before and now everything has been compressible?  

Ulcerate: Social media is a cancer, and for us, unfortunately, it is a necessary evil to disseminate news.  Nothing more, we don’t engage in it beyond that.  None of us have personal profiles, and the only material we publish is our actual artistic output.  I have real concerns about where we are headed culturally with the Instagram / TikTok model of ‘short content’ - whereby we are favoring shallowness and engagement over depth and complexity. The loudest, dumbest, most viral pieces of ‘content’ (a fucking disgusting term) are the things shaping our landscape.  It’s a race to the bottom and the signaling of an actual dangerous idiocracy.  

In terms of artists maintaining at least some level of mystique and curiosity, I think it's crucial.  People give too much of themselves away these days, and I 100% believe it devalues their output.  People are addicted to engagement and seem to think they’ll be irrelevant if they aren’t constantly in the public eye.  We simply speak when we have something to say.  

Metallerium: Well Jamie, we come to the sad moment of this interview, I hope you enjoyed this interview as I did and thank you very much for your time. “Cutting the Throat of God” is a tremendous album from the band. Maybe you have something to add to your Latin fans and Metallerium followers.  

Ulcerate: We appreciate the support, and with any luck next year will see us in your territories!