Well for those of you hoping for a return to Engineering the Dead, there’s always next album. To be honest I liked the direction they were going in from Goremageddon on as I tend to prefer melodic death more to the bloodsoaked gore of their early albums. I’ve just never been that into gore for gore’s sake. However the heaviness almost seems to be gone and it’s been replaced with a technicality that seems overdone. They do want to hang on to their previous work which causes the album to suffer from Multiple Album Disorder. Are they Carcass or are they another forgettable Gothenberg metalcore band?
They are trying to be two bands at the same time, but instead of mixing both their old and new sound into a devastating hybrid this just comes off as clumsy and unsure of itself. The lyrics are Symphonies of Sickness, but the material is only slightly better than Swansong (a truly awful record I care not what anyone says in its defense). Somehow while trying to distance themselves from Carcass they ended up parroting their lowest point.
The production doesn’t help matters as the guitars are not thick enough for the nasty parts, thus undermining them. The drum sound is terrible as the ultra clicky bass drum is driving me up the wall. The bass is prominent in the mix but it seems too bouncy. Sven’s vocals are dead on, but one out of 5 isn’t nearly good enough. Eric Rachel’s cookie cutter production doesn’t help matters either, (It should have been called Tue Madsen’s greatest hits as produced by Eric Rachel, because this sounds exactly like one of Tue’s, and we all know all of his sound exactly alike.) It doesn’t really matter since it seems they went with Rachel as he’s worked with The Black Dahlia Murder. It’s his production that gives this album such an overpowering metalcore feel, combined with way too many breakdowns. This is odd because I thought he did fine with The Black Dahlia Murder, I guess he needs Brain Slagel over his shoulder the whole time.
When they want to get nasty it seems to be done on autopilot as there is just a storm of blasting or an overdose of pinch harmonics, which sounds like they’re trying to compensate for a lack of ideas. Maybe it’s just because they came back too soon after Slaughter and Apparatus but this just seems forced and bland. No two ways about it, this is a grievous misstep by a formerly great band.
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mmm breakdowns yummy, haven’t heard it yet but if the breaks are of the chug variety shits gun be sweet. well for me cause i def wanna swing to this shit.
on Jun 17th, 2008 at 21:12Never liked Aborted, they seem so derivative of other bands, plus I dislike the vocals. BUT, I will defend Swansong to no end, Carcass gone Megadeth seemed like a fine way to sound after Heartwork. They just wouldn’t be able to beat that, so they side-stepped. Black Star is a perennial fave.
on Jun 18th, 2008 at 04:30This thing is total Us styled Swede core-almost unrecognizeable as Aborted
on Jun 18th, 2008 at 07:41I love Aborted… IMO they are the best gore-themed band besides Cannibal Corpse. I really don’t understand the hatred towards this release. Surely it’s no Goremageddon, unquestionably their finest hour, but I still love it with all it’s more melodic tendencies. I will say, however, that I’m extremely pleased with the direction they’re going in with their new track, “Coronary Reconstruction”. It seems to have come straight from the Goremageddon days. Check it out on their myspace.
on Jan 4th, 2010 at 20:46