Thursday 21 April 2016

Aborted - "Retrogore" (Album Review)

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 22/04/2016
Label: Century Media Records


The story of ‘Retrogore’ is that of an album that creates memorable moments, rather than relying on pure heaviness and technicality.  There is plenty of variety from song to song, with Aborted showing that they’ve found a way to come up with new ideas without throwing their standard strengths as a band out the window in the name of progress. On that basis, Aborted are undeniably at their best on this album.


‘Retrogore’ CD//LP//DD track listing:

1. Dellamorte Dellamore
2. Retrogore
3. Cadaverous Collection
4. Whoremageddon
5. Termination Redux (Album Version)
6. Bit By Bit
7. Divine Impediment
8. Coven Of Ignorance
9. The Mephitic Conundrum
10. Forged In Decrepitude
11. From Beyond (The Grave)
12. In Avernus

Aborted is:

Sven De Caluwe | Vocals
Mendel Bij De Leij | Guitars
Ian Jekelis | Guitars
JB van der Wal | Bass
Ken Bedene | Drums

The Review:

Aborted have been doing this for nearly twenty years at this point. The band’s history paints a story that’s becoming all the more common as the years wear on. They hit an early peak with ‘Engineering the Dead’ and ‘Goremageddon: The Saw and the Carnage Done’, in 2001 and 2003 respectively, before losing their way on the albums that followed. Their attempts to add strong influences from hardcore and groove metal into their sound produced decidedly mixed results.

Of course, a band is always going to try new things, and by the time 2012’s ‘Global Flatline’ had arrived, Aborted had settled back into a much more straightforward death metal style anyway, and they’d become ridiculously tight as musicians in the interim. 2014’s ‘Necrotic Manifesto’ was likely their best since ‘Goremageddon’, though the album seems to have been carried more by its dizzying brutality than truly memorable songs, in retrospect. Were ‘Retrogore’ to follow suit, I’d probably be writing about a case of diminishing returns. Thankfully, the story of ‘Retrogore’ is that of an album that creates memorable moments, rather than relying on pure heaviness and technicality.

A key example of Aborted allowing atmosphere and clever riff writing to shine through the dense, note and blast-heavy tempest is “Divine Impediment”. The song opens with some relatively clean guitar work aiding in building to a big moment as the drums progress towards their absolute peak in intensity before finally exploding into a furious riff that takes on a different tone altogether. Interestingly, from that point on the songs echo Nile’s excellent ‘Annihilation of the Wicked’ and ‘Those Whom the Gods Detest’ albums. It’s worth noting that every member of the band is positively on fire throughout the rest of the album as well, with the guitars putting together the band’s finest performances to date both from a rhythm and lead standpoint.

Retrogore’ stands to hold up as a much more interesting album than ‘Necrotic Manifesto’ for its variety as the years go on. There is plenty of variety from song to song, with Aborted showing that they’ve found a way to come up with new ideas without throwing their standard strengths as a band out the window in the name of progress. Aborted are undeniably at their best on this album.

You can pre-order a digital copy here and a CD/LP copy here



Band info: Facebook