Now I am really confused. Either the band has decided to take a huge turn or nobody knows what these guys are playing. I can say that I had to spend much time on ULCERATE in order to find out who they are, what they play etc. After gathering the required information, here I am listening to the band's album once again having driven some doubts away.

The band hails from New Zealand, the country that gave birth to the amazing Death Metal act DAWN OF AZAZEL (if you don't know them you should better check them out). Formed in 2000, the band debuted with its 2007 album Of Fracture And Failure through Neurotic Records. Two years later ULCERATE strikes back with its sophomore full-length release, this time through Willowtip Records.

So, I read the bio note from the label and it describes the band as Black Metal, I check various pages over the net and they describe ULCERATE as a brutal Death Metal act. What I came across is a weird and may I say modern Death Metal band. There are times ULCERATE beat the living crap out of their instruments with brutal Death Metal tunes. But there are also many times I thought about bands like THE OCEAN (their early works mainly), BURST, GOJIRA, MASTODON etc. So think about a mix between Death Metal's heaviness and some modern heavy fragments that give the band a more progressive touch. The fact is that I think these guys needed to work a bit more on this difficult mission since all these different sounds are really difficult to handle.

Not only the recipe is not so successfully but the band hasn't also paid much attention to its production, resulting in a weak sound. All in all this is nothing more than a mediocre release, but shows signs of great potential. I think that ULCERATE can provide some really nice stuff in the near future. The fact is that they need some extra work.