Originally written by Dan Staige.
Aborted is a band that I’ve been keeping my eye on for awhile. Mainly because I thought that w/ their skills and approach to death metal, they could become a monster of a band if they just got HEAVIER. Engineering the Dead had some killer riffing, skill, & speed, but when they broke to a crush, it just didn’t come out as heavy as it seemed to want to. So awhile ago I heard the MP3 for “Meticulous Invagination”, and my prayers to Satan had been answered: Aborted downtooned and apparently fueled their metal desires w/ Dianabol or some other injectable ‘roid. But it seems that during this explosive growth and shreddage they lost the smooth production values they had on Engineering the Dead. I’m not saying the new production is bad, it just sounds a little outta whack. The mids and guitars basically whip everything around them to death. Double-kick is not as audible or “punchy”, yet the snare just blasts through w/ ease. When you listen to “Goremageddon”, you’re going to hear blasting and up-front guitars and a cracking snare. It just doesn’t really sound professionally balanced or anything. I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you listen to it on. Some discs I have sound good in the home system, but then sound like complete dung in the car system, and vice versa. My opinions on the production aside, there is some mean & aggressive death metal to be found. Let’s investigate… “Meticulous Invagination” is a perfect start to the album and the bruted-up metal Aborted presents. Lots of time-changing pit riffs sewn together w/ an unforgiving load of mechanical sounding blast beats. Then there’s the booming thunder-drum before and after the mid-song break that quite frankly caught me off guard and scared the fuck out of me. A very smooth sounding solo awakens over the monster power chords, which is typical of Aborted’s music. “The Saw & the Carnage Done” has one of the meanest intros I personally have ever heard. The rest of the song does not disappoint. Leading you slightly astray w/ more silky interloods, Aborted drops one of the heaviest fucking breakdowns you’ll ever hear onto your 98 pound metal wershipping frame and eradicates effectively by means of raw unbridled chunk. “Ornaments of Derision”, I’ve listened to this song an immense amount of times and I still can’t figure out the end. What the phuck is that? All of a sudden the song just stops and goes into this unorthodox lurching bottom-end riff, but I can’t follow it, and I sure as hell can’t see how the drummer can, because it almost sounds polyrhythmic. I’m embarrassed to admit I can’t grasp the thing! I’ll put it on the top of my priority list until I can! “Sanguine Verses” has a mega-metal breakdown escorted by the thunder-drum, and then they go into another completely different chunk afterwerds. “Charted Carnal Effigy” reminds me a lot of Carcass “circa” the Descanting days. “Medical Deviance” closes w/ a massive grimace attack w/ pig squeals flying around every corner. In an interesting touch, “Sea of Cartilage” bulges up mid-song while serial killer interview excerpts are played over it. Very mood-setting indeed. Aborted has put out a headbanging album from beginning to end. Every song has a trademark riff in it and a crushing breakdown as well. Not as technikill as I was hoping, but much heavier than I expected. If you’re not a picky fucker about production like I seem to have become and you don’t mind what sounds like overblown mids, you’re gonna wership this and that’s 100% guaranteed. It’s a solid fix for the itch of primitive brutality.
