AN NCS PREMIERE: ULSECT — “FALL TO DEPRAVITY”

 

With good reason, the new album by the Dutch band Dodecahedron (Kwintessens) has been drawing a lot of attention around metaldom leading up to its release next month by Season of Mist, but two of that band’s members are participants in another project that has a new album on the way, and early signs are that it will be worth just as much attention.

Ulsect is the name of this second group, and its line-up includes not only guitarist Joris Bonis and drummer Jasper Barendregt from Dodecahedron but also former Textures bass-player Dennis Aarts, guitarist Arno Frericks (ex-Encircled), and vocalist Dennis Maas. Their self-titled debut album, also being released by Season of Mist, is due to arrive on May 12, 2017, and we have an advance track named “Fall To Depravity” that should kindle your interest immediately.

 

 

Whereas Dodecadron offer a dissonant and technically extravagant brand of avant-garde black metal, Ulsect’s approach — at least as manifested in this opening track for their first album — is a tantalizing hybrid of death metal and post-metal, with a bit of blackening in the strain as well.

In many ways the song is strange, discordant, and disorienting. It races and nearly halts without warning; it explodes in violent seizures of sound and then turns corners into vast, void-like spaces that seem populated by incorporeal alien forms. But the song also regularly returns to driving rhythms that get your head nodding.

You receive hints of these juxtapositions right away as the song greets you with a caustic swirl of riff distortion coupled with a punchy bass and drum rhythm. The song bursts into flame, still propelled by a hard-hitting snare rhythm, as scathing shrieks spew acid and vitriol right at you, and the ensuing blend of dissonance and deep, moaning melody exert a strange allure.

When the driving drum rhythms slow, that creates a  space which becomes filled with the crash and chiming of chords and by notes that flicker and twitch like like a flame, creating a haunting and hallucinatory atmosphere. The band latch on to a groove again and then burst into a final conflagration of racing riffs, blasting drums, and boiling screams.

 

 

The band commented on “Fall To Depravity” as follows:

“Our track ‘Fall to Depravity’ portrays moral atrophy, the corruption of human essence and the relapse into inhuman ways. The deteriorating rhythmic motif threaded throughout our album’s opening track represents this gradual decay. Segments of delusive tranquillity and the vicious walls of sound revealed here, form a first glance of what our debut has to offer. We are truly proud of what we have created and are thrilled to finally be able to share this first track with all of you!”

We can’t help but be intrigued by what else Ulsect holds in store. The album is available for pre-order now at this location:

https://shopusa.season-of-mist.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=ulsect

Track List:
1. Fall to Depravity
2. Our Trivial Toil
3. Diminish
4. Moirae
5. Unveil
6. An Augury
7. The Endling
8. Maunder

Ulsect on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ulsect

Season Of Mist:
http://www.season-of-mist.com
http://www.facebook.com/seasonofmistofficial