The Purity of Perversion

I discovered Aborted in the year 2000, in one of the Repulsive Festivals Dave Rotten used to organize in later 90's-early 2000's, where they opened for Avulsed and Sinister among others. The first time I saw the band on stage, I had a 'premonition', maybe odd or bizarre. Even before they played a single note, I somehow knew I was going to like them because vocalist Sven de Calluwé was wearing a Sintury shirt. It makes obviously no sense, but was quite significant for me though (Sintury is one of my favourite death metal bands. Indeed, my first review ever in MA was for Sintury's debut). No need to say I loved Aborted after seeing and enjoying their show, and a few days later I was buying their debut.

After a first listening, this may seem a typical american brutal band like Brodequin (I find the sound in this album pretty similar to Brodequin's), Waco Jesus, Dying Fetus or the likes, because of the sheer brutality and precise musical slaughter. But there's also an european feeling to it (something in the vein of Sinister, Beheaded or Krabathor "Lies"/"Orthodox" era) because of the catchiness and unique melodic approach. There're several intros taken from horror movies like 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'Evildead' or 'Braindead', but they're short and enjoyable, adding an extra to the general result. Just unlike Mortician, whose long and boring intros and outros make it look like there're more intros than actual music...

Maybe the final production is a bit muddy and the guitars sound a little tiny, but everything can be clearly heard. Guitars sound crunchy, highly distorted with pretty technical riffing. Twisted and fast riffs, with an intensive use of pinch harmonics and complex song structures mixed with power-chords, more standard structures and even some breakdowns here and there. The only bad point I find is bass guitar, which I don't find It! It's buried somewhere beneath this wall of sound, I miss it a little bit...

Sven's vocals are simply great, I think he's one of the best death metal vocalists. Although this is their first effort, he shows his unique skills. He has a varied range of different vocal styles, from raspy high pitched or hysterical screams to low, deep and powerful growls. He never gets boring or monotonous, as maybe the vast majority of death metal vocalists (even though I love death metal and really enjoy death metal vocals, I assume this kind of vocals is the biggest flaw or complain people tend to have about the style). Anyway, vocals are varied enough to keep it interesting. As always in the genre, lyrics are pretty gore-soaked and I think Aborted's purpose was to take lyrical themes a step further than the average death metal, something they clearly achieved as the final result is quite perverted, vicious and disturbing.

Surely they got much better in their following full-lengths, specially "Engineering the Dead" and "Goremageddon. The Saw and the Carnage Done" (for me, this last one is their best effort to date), but in this first album one can see their huge potential.

Oh Aborted, what great teenage memories rise up inside of me when I hear this band name. My first contact with Aborted was "The Archaic Abattoir" back in the days in which I did just know death metal in form of the glorious Cannibal Corpse or the gruesome Six Feet Under. Aborted was, is, and will ever be one of my favourite bands ever because what I found in them was a new dimension of musical brutality and a intensity no other band reached except Cattle Decapitation in this sector. It took time until I found "The Purity of Perversion", and yeah it is really cool. No more, no less. For a debut it serves its purpose but at first listen I was a bit disappointed because I've know better albums by them. But with time I realised that "The Purity of Perversion" is not that far from albums like "The Archaic Abattoir". In its essence "The Purity of Perversion" is really the cornerstone for everything this band will produce in the future. If you have heard "The Purity of Perversion" then you may notice that it contains the ultimate elements of Aborted in its core. To make it quick: Every Aborted album has "The Purity of Perversion" inside its structure.

The music itself is a mixture of death metal and grindcore in which you can hear the talent the musicians own although they are still a few miles away from what they are able to play in the future on their instruments. Here you can still have a lot of fun, the music is so fucking putrid, the riffs reek of carrion and I love the samples here. The mixture, though not really new or innovative by todays standards, is nonetheless quite interesting for an album that was recorded in 1999. "The Purity of Perversion" shows a young band in their adolescence full of hunger and energy. Lyrically it does not differ from later Aborted albums, they are soaked in blood, gore, excrements and festering human remains that it is fun to read the lyrics in the booklet to fully understand what is going on. I think the greatest point here is the vocalist, Sven de Caluwé. On "The Purity of Perversion" he also showed a wide variety of skills that any death metal frontman should own as he goes smoothly from your standard scream to black metal shriek to guttural growl, sometimes even pig squeals. And, as mentioned before, he writes pretty fucked-up lyrics, definitely for all the gore-loving perverts. 

To speak of Sven de Caluwé, I dedicate the review title especially to him because he is the only remaining founding member in Aborted over the entire band career. In fact he is Aborted and I envy his courage to go on with Aborted after near thirty line-up changes and not to give up and end the band instead. What greatness he has achived with this band is shown in later releases, and no matter what drives him I hope this fire will never cease to burn. For me he is some sort of hero in this genre and a one man army that will hopefully never give up. Thank you Sven!

So even though "The Purity of Perversion" is not the best record Aborted has delivered, it is still one solid death metal album. It might be repetitive at times, but generally it is highly enjoyable and worth recommending. And it is fun as fuck, so if you have the chance then buy it... and the rest of the discography too. The greatness begins with the follow-up of "The Purity of Perversion", and on this point Arborted transform from a little death metal band to one of the greatest things in music history, and especially in their genre. Thank you for your time, my friend!

For a debut album, this is surprisingly good. The simple fact of being a debut has a tendency to lower my expectations, but these songs generally hold up pretty well. Purity also proves wrong some of my initial assumptions about the band's progression. The actual enjoyment of the music itself is derived from the faster portions which, thankfully, are frequent.

Starting with some fringe elements, the cover is awful. A fake-looking woman splattered is cheesy in a bad way although Aborted never really seemed to stumble upon awesome covers, and this isn't their worst. Like a fossil in the desert, their aforementioned musical development is shown to be much different than I had envisioned prior. With Goremageddon and it's melodic leads as my initial exposure to Aborted, my imagined starting point for this band was closer to that of Impaled. This is most certainly not like Impaled, and it isn't even much like Carcass. No, Aborted here is much closer to brutal death metal bands such as Skinless, albeit with a less crushing sound. There isn't anything innately wrong with this, but it was unexpected to say the least. Lastly, the intros are longer and more frequent than would be ideal. This is already barely half an hour, but a full five or so minutes is composed of filler that isn't all that interesting.

Production on Purity is not as good as it should be. Debuts frequently have this problem, and it's not that bad, but the music would have been better served with slightly clearer production. The most obvious instances are when the songs open up with a fast riff, and they are cloudy to start with. Particularly compared to their most recent album, Sven is a much, much smaller piece of the sound. Guitars are definitely up-front with everything else trailing. Mileage will vary on all this, though I do believe that Sven's place in the mix is a plus of the album.

Many point to Sven's vocals as maybe the strongest aspect of the band, but I'm not sure about that. His voice alternates between a deep growl that almost sounds like he's coughing and some sharp screeches that bring to mind a harsher Doty. Occasionally, some Walker-esque, puking vocals are thrown in though they're not sustained for as long as was heard on Reek or Symphonies. Sven convey's their message well, but this talk of him as a really great vocalist is excessive. The lyrics present are somewhat simpler than would be read later on. Act of Supremacy, the first real track, is closer to what Barnes wrote for Cannibal Corpse than it is to what Walker penned on the early Carcass albums. The usual Hellraiser nod is to be found on the very next song, The Lament Configuration. Lament also contains the line “reek of putrefaction,” and is the most overt of several Carcass references.

Purity is largely fast, again where the quality is at, but parts of the songs do slow down and often with a breakdown. These breakdowns aren't too frequent, but they occur often enough to bring the music down somewhat. Other than these mild annoyances, the guitar playing is very satisfying. Regardless of pace, Niek and Herre enjoy tossing in random squeals, and their tremolo riffs are nearly always good. The riffing on display is pretty atonal, but their dissonance is delicious. Atonality as the rule is very different from many other Aborted albums, yet this is the style that they started with. Neither of these guys were there by the third album, so the change can be understood, but it's interesting nonetheless.

This is a solid, though surprising, start to Belgium's finest. Many aspects have carried through, such as the breakdowns and Hellraiser homages, while others have been supplanted, their playing is less atonal. The Purity of Perversion hasn't been reviewed yet, which is a little odd. This is a fair release from a band that is pretty well-known and liked. A slightly clearer sound, a couple more good songs, and fewer breakdowns are all this album would need to be a very good release. A bigger fan of breakdowns might even feel that this is already very good. Any Aborted fan should have this, and a death metal fan should at least hear it.