### Aborted: Global flatline

#### 09/08/12 || Sokaris

Big dumb heavy fucken gore. I like it. Seems like the metalcore flirtations are over and Aborted have decided to rekindle the grotesque romance with good old fashioned gore metal. The mainstream inclinations that began creeping in on The archaic abattoir (which was still decent) and further saturated the band’s sound with “Slaughter and appartus” and Strychnine.213 have been basically cleansed. 2010’s “Coronary reconstruction” showed great promise and fans wishing for a continuation of the band’s older sound welcomed back Aborted with open arms and spilling guts.

Aborted have long been one of those bands I’ve hoped would get back on track. I’m honestly not sure what made me keep the faith alive for them despite the fact that one of the other Carcass disciples with names ending in -ed deserved their numbers(Impaled or Exhumed, namely) more. Maybe it was the fact that their set opening for brutal death deities Suffocation and Cryptopsy (pre-Unspoken King fortunately) absolutely blew me away years ago. Maybe it’s the consistently badass artwork. Speaking of, this time around things were handled by one Justin Osborn of Slasher Design and just goddamn is it good. Really makes use of the extra panels a digipack provides.

Anyway, onto the matter of splatter at hand. The songwriting is rapid fire and tempos are varied enough to keep the blood flowing. I’m a fan of the guitar tone, nasty enough to retain a shitload of heaviness but clear enough to show off some of the more technical work on display. Some of the soloing is a little off, particularly on “Fecal forgery” when the song goes major key. I think more emphasis on the grating groove side of the band would do them well though as they tend to bring out chunkier riffs that stay with you in these occasions. Drums are powerful, if a little sterile sounding and the vocals are kind of a mixed bag. I’m still not totally sold on the shouts but lead throat Sven de Caluwé mixes up his approach and throws his all into it so it doesn’t detract from the album too much. Bass isn’t heard often, which is a shame because it’s got a fucken nasty tone when it does emerge. Regarding the miscellaneous sonic elements, I actually like the sampling a lot, adding bits of what sounds like news reports and horror movies. I think at this point they’ve had to have featured every damn line from Hellraiser 2’s Dr. Channard.

Pretty solid affair overall but if everything had been as good as “Our father, who art of feces” (yes there are two songs with some form of the word “feces” in the title) this could get notched up a point easy.

If you’re dead set against modern sounding death metal you probably didn’t give much of a shit about this album to begin with. However, if you’ve wanted a proper follow-up to “Goremageddon” then open up and fill your orifice with offal.

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Century Media
- Website: www.goremageddon.be/
- Band
- Sven de Caluwé: vocals
- Michael Wilson: guitars
- Eran Segal: guitars
- JB van der Wal: bass
- Ken Bedene: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Omega mortis
- 02. Global flatline
- 03. Источник Болезни (The origin of disease)
- 04. Coronary reconstruction
- 05. Fecal forgery
- 06. Of scabs and boils
- 07. Vermicular, obscene obese
- 08. Expurgation euphoria
- 09. From a tepid whiff
- 10. The Kallinger theory
- 11. Our father, who art of feces
- 12. Grime
- 13. Endstille