Vermis (album)

Musical style and writing

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".

According to Merat, Vermis uses the metaphor of invertebrate animal species to explore "the over-arching theme of spinelessness [and] oppression". Merat explained that different forms of oppression are explored on the album, including:

The helplessness and suffering of those oppressed; the barbarism of the oppressors; the ways and means of oppression, particularly dogma, power and manipulation; those unaware or ignorant of the oppressed and their own relative luxury; those aware, but rendered mute through fear and spinelessness; and the impact and collateral of these attitudes on the world around us.

Critical reception

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".

Track listing

All songs written by Michael Hoggard and Jamie Saint Merat. All lyrics by Paul Kelland.

Personnel

Personnel adapted from liner notes.

Ulcerate

Production and art