| Vermis | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Ulcerate |
| Cover: | Ulcerate_-_Vermis_2013.jpg |
| Released: | September 13, 2013 |
| Recorded: | March – April 2013[1] |
| Studio: | MCA Studios, Auckland, New Zealand |
| Genre: | Technical death metal, post-metal |
| Length: | 54:18 |
| Label: | Relapse Records |
| Producer: | Jamie Saint Merat |
| Prev Title: | The Destroyers of All |
| Prev Year: | 2011 |
| Next Title: | Shrines of Paralysis |
| Next Year: | 2016 |
Vermis is the fourth full-length album by New Zealand death metal band Ulcerate. It was released on September 13, 2013, through Relapse Records to positive reviews. It is the first album by Ulcerate to be released through Relapse.
While the band has been noted for its use of dissonance, drummer Jamie Saint Merat countered that "dissonance for dissonance’s sake is extremely fatiguing". Given this, Merat said that Vermis uses melody in a "weird and unsettling" way to create "a tangible amount of tension and release". Merat further noted that the band made a conscious decision with Vermis to bring back "a level of unpredictability we've always had in the past" due to the feeling that the previous album, The Destroyers of All, "came out a little too fluid on the whole".[2]
According to Merat, Vermis uses the metaphor of invertebrate animal species to explore "the over-arching theme of spinelessness [and] oppression".[3] Merat explained that different forms of oppression are explored on the album, including:
Vermis has received positive reviews from critics. Several reviewers noted that Ulcerate's approach posed a challenge for casual listeners, with Greg Pratt, Dave Schalek, and Brandon Ringo cautioning that Vermis placed exceptional demands upon its audience prior to disclosing its positive features. Pitchfork's Andy O'Connor cited the album's use of technicality favourably, remarking that "as complicated as the music may be, Vermis is an album of songs, not exercises. Technicality is used to convey madness; it's not the ultimate goal in and of itself". Praising the band's "distinctive voice", Popmatters' Craig Hayes observed that Vermis extended the band's "continually refined" creative trajectory by "bringing more artful sculpturing to its downtuned dissonance and complex time signatures, and setting that against a backdrop of often droning and industrial textures. The band’s work has evolved to become steadily more nerve-shredding and formidable, with the usual riff-based shreds of death metal mutilated into a seething and polychromatic canvas of avant-garde atmospherics".
All songs written by Michael Hoggard and Jamie Saint Merat. All lyrics by Paul Kelland.
Personnel adapted from liner notes.