Monday 9 June 2014

Aborted - The Necrotic Manifesto (Album Review)


Album Type : Full Length
Date Released : 28/4/2014
Label : Century Media

ABORTED “The Necrotic Manifesto” (CD, LP)

01. Six Feet Of Foreplay (01:12)
02. The Extirpation Agenda (03:11)
03. Necrotic Manifesto (02:45)
04. An Enumeration Of Cadavers (03:31)
05. Your Entitlement Means Nothing (01:44)
06. The Davidian Deceit (03:32)
07. Coffin Upon Coffin (03:25)
08. Chronicles Of Detruncation (03:07)
09. Sade & Libertine Lunacy (03:41)
10. Die Verzweiflung (02:28)
11. Excremental Veracity (02:38)
12. Purity Of Perversion (02:44)
13. Of Dead Skin & Decay (03:08)
14. Cenobites (05:28)

Bio :

In this world where there are many ways to die… there are even more ways to kill! Sonic mass murderers ABORTED have elaborately focused on this grim reality since their inception back in 1995 and return to once again to underline this fact on their eighth studio album, The Necrotic Manifesto. Founding member and vocalist Sven "Svencho" de Caluwé reveals that conceptually “the album is our own take on the sordid tales of the Necronomicon, the “book of the dead”, of acorpse drowned in a tepid sauce made of gore and fun, covered with a good old 80’s slasher vibe.”

Delicious gory fun aside, musically speaking, ABORTED have always meant dead serious-death metal business. Delivering aural blows with maximum versatility, hard-hitting brutality and dead-on delivery, ABORTED have successfully melted together the sounds of Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Entombed and many more while retaining their own signature sound and visual identity.

Production on The Necrotic Manifesto was once again handled by Jacob Hansen, who had already sharpened his skills on 2003’s gore-classic Goremageddon and returned to the sonic helm on 2011’s Global Flatline. Visually, the albums concept was congenially transformed by Par Olofsson, who has gained fame by working with acts such as The Faceless, Exodus, Immolation, Pathology, Immortal and many more. The Necrotic Manifesto continues in the tradition of its predecessors, guaranteeing you maximum gore metal pleasure while taking you on a romp through a mind riddled with murderous depravity.

The Band :

Sven De Caluwe | Gurgloroth
Mendel Bij De Leij | Flesh Upon The Razor Wire
Danny Tunker | Immaculate Resection
JB van der Wal | Nocturnal Pulse
Ken Bedene | Hymen Blaster

Review :

Make no mistake about it; ‘The Necrotic Manifesto’, the 8th full length album from Belgium’s Aborted, is a very good album. It’s a great album, even. It rages at damn near all times, it’s precise, grinding and hateful. It’s also exhausting at points. The thing that makes this album so impressive is the same thing that also takes the first half of the album down a notch compared to what it could have been. Prior to “Coffin upon Coffin”, ‘The Necrotic Manifesto’ is so chock full of blasting and Gatling gun double kick that it started to wear me out. Wisely, Aborted started to utilize a greater variety in both tempos and riffing style before it got to be too much of a good thing.

The album starts out with, as you might have guessed, a prolonged sample from a Hellraiser movie. This one is from Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, which is kind of underrated in my opinion. The album really kicks in with “The Extirpation Agenda”, the opening seconds of which might be the most insane in Aborted’s discography. It’s kind of like a death metal version of an orchestral sting, horror movies use to sonically put viewers on edge. Things “settle down” from there into something better resembling their previous work and it’s clear that this is going to Aborted at their best. Every instrument is played precisely and the production does an excellent job of showcasing that precision without sacrificing any heaviness in the process. Of course, sheer brutality and technicality does not guarantee a great album. Without writing engaging songs, all of that effort and technical prowess is a monumental waste. Thankfully, there is plenty of both on display.

If the first half of the album is largely about flexing their speed muscles, the second half is about a healthier variety. “Coffin upon Coffin”, perhaps the best song on the album, is up there with the best death metal songs of the year. You can hear plenty of Carcass in the first forty seconds; going from a slower opening at first to a thrashier but controlled tempo before finally exploding with the kind of blasting fury more consistent with the rest of the album. It’s an excellent example of everything that Aborted has learned to do so well, and it’s an approach I wish they would employ a bit more often. Another absolute highlight of “Coffin upon Coffin”, but also the album as a whole, is the fantastic lead work. Perhaps I’ve simply not taken notice of this on previous Aborted albums, but the solos performed throughout the album are as good as you’ll find anywhere. Not only do they shred, but they’re also brilliantly crafted from a melodic standpoint. I’d argue that in overall quality, only Carcass’ work on ‘Surgical Steel’ can claim to be on equal footing when it comes to soloing in recent death metal.  

All of this equates to a great album that could have been an excellent album with a bit more variety tempo-wise, or at least a more even distribution of the variety already present. There’s a lot to love with the massive production, incredible lead work, and top-notch performances all around. For the sake of comparison, I’ll add that this is not only a better album than ‘Global Flatline’; it’s their best since ‘Goremageddon: The Saw and the Carnage Done’. 

Words by : Daniel Jackson