Review Summary: Ulcerate this. Ulcerate that.
For many a metalhead, the idyllic land of New Zealand is most famous for one thing: Ulcerate. Revolutionaries in their own right, they've been churning out one timeless album after another in their quest for aggressive death metal perfection. Their sound is unmistakable and undeniably brilliant, and their influence has spread worldwide as countless bands attempt emulate their dexterous and dissonant modus operandi. Yet, despite the endless march of inspired homages, the closest thing you'll get to an Ulcerate clone is a band that's been spawned from the very roots that sprung the original act. That band is The Temple - a blackened death-doom two piece featuring prominent
Ulceratarian Paul Kelland on the axes and vocals, and J.W. on the drumkit (who, as far as we can tell, is a notable ex-member from the band's incubatory yesteryear). Add a mix and master from the legendary Jamie St. Merat and you've got a recipe for a really good spin-off.
Right off the bat, the 9-minute opener "Omega Prophecy" introduces the ever-familiar gloom of Kelland's inventive chords and apocalyptic voice, hosting a thick layer of ashen soot and spiritual malaise that chokes out the sun with a ferocious grip. The tumult ebbs and flows between blasting bouts of fury and doomy passage alike, setting up the rest of the affair with predictable aptitude while J.W.'s work on the drums (though lacking the flair of St. Merat's worldclass work) fits the script and bolsters the mood with shifting tempos and diverse movements. One thing is immediately clear - this is blackened death-doom of a very high calibre, and while it might sound freakishly like its venerated parentage, these 41 minutes of existential struggle are distinctively blunt in their intention. The skies are grey over the crumbling temple, and with every brick that erodes to dust in the acid rain of a polluted landscape, so too falls a light in the world, never to be rekindled.
"Martyr of the Tyrant" underscores this destitution with a patient tension that tightens the boughs of the mind until they snap-loose into a barrage of torrid riffs and downtrodden leads that suck the last vestiges of hope from the very air you breathe. Moments like these are contrasted in good measure by the catastrophic doom dirges exemplified by "Pale Horse of Pestilence", as well as the more viscious jaunts of "Hell Incarnate" and "Wolf In The Vortex" that bludgeon and slice with the recognizably unfeeling virility and contorted marching of a
Vermis-era Ulcerate. All of this comes to a head in the epic closer "Void of Scars" as it casts its monolithic shadow over the panorama to once more ensure all flickers of optimism are swiftly extinguished.
With only husks of men now in place of a once-soulful world now decimated, the time to consider this self-titled's influence as an almost wholly singular work in both scope and vision arises. It doesn't feel inappropriate to ultimately consider it a nice slab of bonus content in the Ulcerate canon, and is almost better for it. The striking similarities, effective as they are,
could serve themselves up as a lukewarm collection of ideas that didn't escape the corkboard to anyone expecting a mightily different beast, but for those listeners content to enjoy the sound of an Ulcerate offshoot stripping their garb to bare only the black storms within,
The Temple is a welcome addition to 2021's witching hour.
