ALBUM REVIEW: Ultra – Vatican
As metalcore goes, Savannah’s VATICAN can be a little hard to place; marrying the sheer chaos of early metallic hardcore to the more polished techy chug that came to define the genre through the 00s and 10s, while also throwing in elements of post-hardcore, deathcore and the odd electronic flourish, they seem to have something for just about everyone really. Perhaps most impressively, their second full-length Ultra offers all this in just 35 minutes. Arriving this Friday via UNFD, it’s another worthy addition to an increasingly well-saturated modern metalcore landscape.
Following on from 2019’s Sole Impulse, it’s fair to say that VATICAN haven’t moved the goalposts significantly here. Ultra does a lot of similar things to its predecessor, but to be honest that’s hardly a problem. Opener Slipstream Annihilation sets an aggressively high standard for the record to follow, kicking off arguably the album’s strongest run that continues with subsequent tracks I Am Above and Reverence. All three are chug-heavy ragers, probably the kind of sound most people think of when they hear the word ‘metalcore’. The latter – the record’s lead single – also sees the album’s first use of clean vocals. These appeared a couple of times on Sole Impulse too, and do so sporadically across the 14 tracks on offer here. They add just a hint of the ethereal – an almost DEFTONES-esque styling that seems all the rage at the moment.
The album’s first real left-turn comes on fourth track Where Heavens Collide however. This one feels like VATICAN’s radio-ready moment, with pulsating electronics and even more clean vocals. It’s a strong enough piece, with a solid sense of grandeur, but overall Ultra is definitely better when it goes for the jugular. Fortunately, that is how it spends most of its time. [ULTRAGOLD] resumes the violence with aplomb, while later tracks Decemeta and Uncreated Waste both limit their techy riff-driven assaults to bracing sub-two-minute runtimes. All this keeps the record moving along at a considerable pace, with Randy LeBoeuf’s production working big and beefy wonders throughout.
Perhaps the only real issue here is that there are potentially a few too many tracks on Ultra. Thirty-five minutes is hardly the longest runtime, but with 14 songs on offer it does reach a point where the individual tracks just start to pass their listeners by ever so slightly. Admittedly there are a couple of exceptions. By Your Love is an arguably more successful clean vocal-led piece – a sweeping post-hardcore anthem with a particularly towering chorus. Mirror Dream meanwhile evokes the more mathy, tappy chaos of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN – something no metalcore fan in their right mind could ever really complain about – while closer Did You Ever Notice I Was Gone provides delicate pianos, female vocals and more pulsating electronics to somewhat mixed results.
Ultimately though, Ultra marks a strong enough follow-up to VATICAN’s impressive debut full-length. It might be nice to see the band push just a little harder at the edges of their sound, as there are moments here which definitely indicate that they would be capable of it, but as today’s thriving metalcore scene goes there is definitely a lot to like about this.
Rating: 7/10
Ultra is set for release on June 17th via UNFD.
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