With No Human Intervention

With No Human Intervention, Aborym’s third album, is their response to the unenviable task of following up an undisputed genre classic. It is to their immense credit that it largely succeeds, developing and broadening their sound, but preserving the core of their instantly recognisable industrial black metal sound.

After a creepy horror score intro, replete with disembodied voices and crackling ambient sounds, the cold minor-key blasting and throbbing techno of the title track at once recalls the frenzied opening to Fire Walk With Us!, but at the same time synthesises the disparate sonic components more seamlessly than its predecessor. The addition of choral voices, supplementing Attila Csihar’s baleful wail, brings a new majesty to proceedings, heightening the religious fervour with which Aborym perform their black metal art.

If the title track reassures the listener with familiar sounds, the album effortlessly sidesteps any possible contempt over the songs that follow. The wind-tunnel effect of ‘U.V. Impaler’ offers noticeably more raw vocals much higher in the mix than Aborym tend to employ, together with a more staccato and less atmospheric riffing style, melodic guitar runs supplanting the usual wall of sound.

As the album continues, the music comes to reflect the superbly chosen artwork, with the bleepy synths of ‘Humechanics-Virus‘ bleeding into the deadly serious straight drum ‘n’ bass of ‘Does Not Compute’ suggesting a dystopian factory setting, populated by biomechanical labour endlessly repeating soul-numbing tasks.

With No Human Intervention reaches a peak with the staggering ‘Faustian Spirit Of The Earth’ delivering warp-speed blackened thrash that crushes everything in its path, and arguably eclipses anything found on their previous record.

However, after scaling such heights, the high level of quality is sadly not maintained unbroken throughout the rest of the album, which becomes somewhat disjointed and uneven. A case in point is ‘The Triumph’, which threatens splendour via an opening black metal surge of epic proportions, and then scuppers the potential over nearly 9 minutes of restless experimentation and cringeworthy orgasmic samples, which may be consistent with the Aborym aesthetic but have been passé since Guns ‘N’ Roses’ ‘Rocket Queen’ at the very latest. It would have been far more interesting to have heard the band develop the initial riff through 9 minutes of the kind of punishingly mesmeric depths plumbed by classic Burzum or even Weakling.

The closing tracks contain moments of supremacy – the off-kilter electro falling apart at the climax of ‘Me[n]tal Striken Terror Action 2’ and the mutating, pulsing dark techno of ‘Chernobyl Generation’ being two such highlights. However, this is balanced by the inessential likes of ‘Black Hole Spell’ which treads well-worn ground, adding nothing other than an overlong run-time to an album that would be world class shorn of 20 minutes.

With No Human Intervention is an intriguing expansion of the Aborym sound, but lacks the overall cohesion as a unified piece of work that made its predecessor so unimpeachably brilliant. Despite its title, this actually feels like a slightly more organic and human record; the band climbing from the previous album’s abyss in time to join a rave celebrating the end of the humanity, man replaced by machines of their own devising. More human, perhaps all too human.

First published here: https://alifetimeofmusic537956501.wordpress.com/2020/01/04/aborym-with-no-human-intervention/

...And this album was the result. More fearless and daunting than what preceded it, and greater in scope and ambition than what came after it, this one album possesses one helluva unified and focused atmosphere, of which I don't hear a lot of nowadays. If there's a quirk in the production or performances, it was meant to be like that. The guitars sound thin and the drums sound ridiculously fake, but it's supposed to sound like that and actually ends up helping this album out.

But I have gotten ahead of myself. Such a magnimonious album surely deserves a better introduction. Well, albums like Aborym's With No Human Intervention only come once. You're not going to hear another De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, nor will you hear another Blood Fire Death, nor will you hear another Storm of the Light's Bane, and likewise you're not going to hear another With No Human Intervention. Everything works effectively here, and all the elements are in place to make this the DEFINITIVE industrial black metal album. Attila's voice (if you actually pay attention) is well utilized here, often taking up several tracks and conjuring up the most atmospheric performance Attila has ever done, bar none. The guitars form a melodic and aseptic wall of sound, sounding like machines just like the drums, but in a way this is a good thing. The guitar solos are wild, the riffs are "sticky", and the guitars sound overall well integrated into the electronics, which for the first time in Aborym's catalog, get in the front seat with the guitars and drums. Everything is literally in place here, and works incredibly.

Songs like "Out Of Shell" and "Faustian Spirit Of The Earth" deliver cold, mechanical, nihilistic riffs with brilliant segues into half industrial/half black metal parts which retain the guitar assault, yet branch into (considering the year it was made) unfamiliar territory, and in the songs "Does Not Compute" and "Chernobyl Generation" Aborym gives up on even playing metal, with those songs being drum n' bass and EBM, respectively. However, in all of these cases it feels "natural", or at least as organic as such a machinistic band as Aborym can be. At no times do these excursions into electronic territory feel forced or "tacked on"; while it contains more electronics and vocal experiments than previous albums, and probably a good chunk of the future albums, yet they are so well-integrated with the mechanical, nihilistic, and ultimately cold and merciless black metal presented here that at first listen I didn't really notice any electronic parts except the blatantly obvious, like the dance beat breaks that I mentioned earlier in "Faustian Spirit of the Earth", which goes to show how seamless and well-thought out this album was.

As well, I don't think I've spent enough time on Attila's vocals. While I never subscribe to the notion that vocals are anything but the icing on the cake for metal, Attila's assortment of screams, gasps, growls, snarls, singing (though not always clean), and "exhales" (I use that word simply because english words simply do not describe the things this man is capable of) push this music to the next level. Seriously, the work Attila did here bears more resemblance to ritual and rites than to black metal vocals, and while they are still definitively Attila (fans of the man's work will not be disappointed) the holistic nature of them create an atmosphere unto their own; they do not simply take up space, but create a wall of sound -- something vocals almost never do. While the performance he did for Sunn (0))) on the song "Decay: Symptoms of Kali Yuga" I still consider more effective and haunting, this takes a close second, and that's like comparing a turret gun to a mounted minigun. Both get the job done beyond a shadow of a doubt, but one clearly fires more bullets. Likewise, Attila's performance here is more than anybody could've ever hoped for.

However, one last point that needs to be made is about the riffs. Seeing as this is one thing I've seen Aborym lack since Nysrok's departure, here the riffs are all there in their 2 guitar glory. While we do have chugging and chords in some sections, every song has at least one kickass riff, and many songs have several. Multiple tunings are used, guitar solos (and good ones at that) abound, and I could tell that Nysrok and Sethlans tried very deliberately to avoid chugging. And it shows. This album, while it has a macabre "groove" to it at times, mainly due to the EBM influence, innovation and riffing clearly takes the front seat. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 4 songs and 8 riffs that slay absolute ass. In fact, this is such the album that I can recall most of the songs, from start to finish, without having to listen to them first. Few albums are like that for me; Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas being one of them. And yes, I've compared With No Human Intervention to De Mysteriis twice in this review. While they don't share a whole lot in common sonically, aside from both of them being riff-based black metal and featuring Attila, the impact that With No Human Intervention has is comparable to De Mysteriis. That's how much faith and stock I put in this album.

It's a shame that Aborym's discography got spotty after this album, with the well-executed but rather plain Generator and the lack of riffing following Nysrok's departure, but I guess some things really only happen once. This eclipsed every previous Aborym effort in both scope and quality, and has yet to be replicated. I'm doubting it ever will. However, that in no way diminished the glory of With No Human Intervention, and after listening to Aborym's entire discography, and eagerly listening to Dirty within days of it coming out, I still return to With No Human Intervention. Everything about this works amazingly -- the fake but effective programmed drums, the riffing, the all-over-the-place vocals, the keyboards, the riffing, the electronics, the dance beats (don't complain, they're used QUITE effectively), the riffing, and the songwriting. It's all there in its splendid glory, depicting a world after humans. A world, I might add, if it weren't for it meaning my own demise, I would love to inhabit, if it's anything like this tour-de-force. Hell, even the skips resulting from a faulty master only manage to add to the inhuman, digital feel of this album. For once, a lack of emotion and a fake "artificial" sound works, and I'd recommend this to anybody who likes a little "electro" with their metal and doesn't mind a bit of blackened evil in the mix.

It's unlikely to be immediately apparent from my blatant fanboyishness for sick black metal, mainly of the French variety and black in that vein so to speak, but I am a massive fan of industrial black metal, however as always with the black metal elitist I am a picky cunt when it comes to my industrial and am extremely discerning; the electronics have to be written into the songs, instead of black metal songs with electronics added, this is unfortunately the way that Aborym have now gone with 'Psychogrotesque' their new release since Malfeitor Fabban ex-communicated Set Teitan (of Dissection & Watain live fame, now playing with Unanimated) and Nysrok Infernalien (now with the brilliant EBM band Alien Vampires). These two musicians crafted an album of pure brilliance in 2003 in 'With No Human Intervention' and I have yet to hear a more cohesive and brilliant industrial black metal album be released, it is a mark of their genius that upon their exit Aborym have shifted from being a frontrunner of industrial black to being 2nd/3rd tier at best, desperately trying to recapture the glory of this album.

This album shows a mark in the turning point of black metal, a time when people accepted what had come before but were also looking forward to how the genre could be interpreted by the new breed of bands; this is evidenced by the vast number of big names that were involved with this album, old and newcomers alike such as: Faust, Nattefrost, Attila, Matt Jarman (from Code), Mick Kenney/Irrumator ( Hellhammer was originally supposed to play drums but couldn't commit when they finally recorded) to name a few. The scope of names attached to this album gives you an idea of how Aborym were perceived at the time, innovators and true prodigies of the movement that came before.

With No Human Intervention is an incredibly complex and harsh record, whilst a band like DSO or Arkhon Infaustus can prove extremely abrasive to listen to because of the pure grime in their recordings, Aborym provide this in the complexity and pure cold, hard, mechanical logic, there is no warmth to the album. It is heavily digitised, it is trebly, there is no warmth to be had at all, it is a calculated and mathematically pure beast, and all this becomes evident as soon as the title track kicks in after the somewhat disturbing intro. A barrage of programmed drums, razor sharp guitar tone and maniacal soloing courtesy of Nysrok, subtle programmed synths and sounds float in and out of the experience to create an intensely visceral sound.

The best thing? It never lets up, occasionally the songs will slow down but it's for mere moments and it does nothing to detract from the experience. The album shows such variation, switching between straight black start of 'The Triumph' for instance, to EBM with 'Chernobyl Generation' and a very industrial trip-hop track programmed by Matt Jarman of Code. To give an idea of the variation at hand let me use 'The Triumph' as an example: it starts with thick synthesised notes, enters into a classic 2nd wave straight black riff, break with spacey synths to a beautiful clean solo then somehow descends into a twisted carnival tune, the song pays homage to EBM band Project Pitchfork by sampling and re-imagining one of their songs and ends with a porn actress screaming in orgasm - bizarre? Yes. Brilliant? In ways you have yet to imagine.

With No Human Intervention is seamless and lush, it never falters, it always knows what it's doing and where it's headed, the musicianship is phenomenal; the bass and guitar work is beyond reproach. Attila gives probably the best performance he has ever done, with a vast amount of variation, putting any of his work with Mayhem, Anaal Nathrakh, Divine Codex, etc. to shame. The absolute piece de resistance of the whole album though is the programming, it is subtle, controlled, it enters when needed, never burdensome or fighting to make its presence known, it just exists perfectly along with the other instruments.

This isn't an album for everyone, it may seem too scatterbrained, too unclear in its objectives, the way it darts between styles and ultimately the utilisation of dance influence, but for the open minded I can't describe the treasure trove you can discover within this album. Every time I listen to it, it brings me joy, the opening notes of 'The Triumph' send a nice little trickle of serotonin to my brain because I know the epic song that is to follow, the opening of the title track blows me away every time. It is an album that rewards you with repeated listens and your experience is enriched each time, never does it get boring, there are far too many things happening in tandem to get sick of it.

I cannot recommend this album highly enough, this is one album that I couldn't live without and it revolutionised my ideals on black metal, it may take a few listens to crack due to its complexity but persevere with it and you will be one happy fucker. I could try to describe it for an eternity but in all honesty could never accurately describe it other than just sheer perfection.

Oh and for an added treat search out the video for 'With No Human Intervention', one of the best gigs ever, played completely under black light with U.V. corpsepaint - how's that for changing trends in black metal...

(Originally written for baileysmmcreamy.blogspot.com)

Experimentation in metal can be fickle for many artists of the genre; introducing new and foreign aspects into a band’s music can attract new listeners or even alienate unexpecting die-hard fans. Cross-pollinating metal with industrial and techno can be an especially risky venture, as many bands that attempt this seem to fall flat in creating something remotely metal or even enjoyable. Black metal is a sensitive realm to bring these electro-fusions into: Fans of the traditional styling are more likely to dismiss any black metal-dance floor hybrid as being fit for burning. Aborym are obviously notorious for their genetic splicing of black metal and industrial music, but a fan of the band could be forgiven for finding 2003’s With No Human Intervention overly electronic even for them. Debut album Kali Yuga Bizarre relied heavily on incorporating electro-genres as well, though everything presented there contributed to an overall atmosphere of Italian black metal bizarreness. Simply put, they worked well and were a welcome addition. On this album, the industrial undertones are moved to the forefront of the music and will frequently overshadow the black metal for many unprepared listeners. Fortunately though, Aborym’s interpretation of how to apply these will be something unique and genuinely interesting to listen to for those willing to not juxtapose everything presented here and just allow them to mesh together. Black/alien/industrial/ whatever you want to call it is the only apt way to describe the final product, Aborym’s third opus. Much of the band’s best work is to be found here, and unlike the sophomore effort of 2001’s Fire Walk With Us, With No Human Intervention is equally balanced from start to finish when it comes to the running order of the essential tracks.


Every aspect of With No Human Intervention is synonymous with the album’s title; the music at times sounds as if it were composed by machines, possibly unearthly life-forms or what have you. The guitars have a very grainy, electronic-sounding distortion which brings to mind some kind of current that happens to be producing guitar notes as it passes through the circuit board. The bass isn’t overly present in the mix, but the album still sounds a lot thicker than Fire Walk With Us did. Synthesizers are varied and downright terrifying at times, and in many instances become the driving element of many songs. Electronics and samples are everywhere here, taken to the next logical step from the band’s previous works. Vocal duties are once again handled by Attila Csihar, who this time around is mainly doing black metal shrieks and growls. The general opinion seems to be that Attila is underused and restrained here, but his performance is sufficient enough for conveying the hate and technology-driven lyrics. This is Aborym’s third and final album in which a drum machine is used, and some of their best programming work is presented here. KYB and FWWU had songs in which electronic dance-type beats were utilized, but for the most part the machines were simulating what a human drummer would be doing while playing the music. On this album, the band clearly said “Fuck it” and went all-out with the programming instead of having it imitate a human drummer. Blastbeats, breakbeats, and pulsating four-on-the-floors are present here, sometimes all in a single song. It sounds ridiculously mechanical and synthetic, which is surely what Aborym was trying to achieve when programming for With No Human Intervention.


Opening the album is a short intro, the unnerving Antichristian Codec. A very morbid-sounding child speaks a famed line from Shakespeare’s play Macbeth before the title track kicks things off at full blazing speed. Intricate jagged tremolo riffs assault the senses as the listener is introduced to the pounding of the (drum) machine. Chaotic soloing is thrown in the mix as well, courtesy of credited guitarist Nysrok Infernalien. The song (and album, for that matter) refuses to limit itself to the basic verse/chorus/verse template and is constructed with several unique-sounding sections. Following the title track is the towering U.V. Impaler, which opens with epic operatic chanting performed by bassist/keyboardist Malfeitor Fabban. Attila and guest vocalist Nattefrost trade off menacing vocal parts before the song breaks into a melancholic piano and synth section. More blasting and chaotic soloing follows until the song ends, and the experimental Humechanics-Virus blasts itself in. Electronic breaks and samples insert themselves between the high-speed sections, all the while creating a foundation for the diabolic-sounding synthesizer to base itself upon. The song fades into the drum n’ bass-themed interlude Does Not Compute, comprised almost entirely of repeated samples and synth loops. Things start to get metal again with Faustian Spirit Of The Earth, which riffs itself into a neat industrial break towards the middle before ending with some off-the-wall soloing. Digital Goat Masque follows and takes the electronic use up a notch. The whole track is rich in synthesizer experimentation, which limits the riffing to a more simplistic industrial style. The song even features a classically-influenced break just before entering the final section. Following this is the longest song on the album, The Triumph. Unfortunately, much of it feels like it was copy-and-pasted together with various parts that don’t quite flow together well, but nonetheless it's still somewhat enjoyable. After the song’s techno outro of pornographic sampling, the awe-inspiring Black Hole Spell begins and obliterates all boundaries set by the previous tracks. So many things are going on here that’s quite hard to give an accurate description of the music other than, well, it’s just really awesome. Me(n)tal Striken Terror Action 2 fades in after this, quite possibly the most accessible track for those wanting a more riff-oriented song. This ‘sequel’ definitely puts its counterpart from Kali Yuga Bizarre to shame. The dance-like outro slows things down before Out Of Shell speeds it right up again, dragging the listener through a chasm of machines and suffocating synthesizer walls. Out Of Shell features a dance-oriented outro as well before fading into an actual dance track, Chernobyl Generation. It wouldn’t sound out-of-place at a rave or even a club, which means that this track is worth skipping for those who were enjoying the metal aspect of things. The Alienation Of A Blackened Heart thrashes things up and features Nattefrost on lead vocals, whose performance is excellent on this short Ministry-esque song. Everything is finally wrapped up with the short outro of Automatik Raveolution Aborym, which features a few seconds’ worth of dance beats before fading into the dissonance heard on Antichristian Codec.


With No Human Intervention is the supreme combination of black metal and industrial music, putting almost everything released by bands like Blacklodge to shame. It may sound mismatched and overly-electronic for many, but it’s quite a rewarding listen for those who simply let everything clash together and enjoy the racket. Despite being incredibly sample-heavy and futuristic, it still felt like the next logical step for a band that had hinted at their fondness for electronica with their past albums. Attila and guitarist Set Teitan left the band sometime after the release of With No Human Intervention, which could explain why 2006’s Generator doesn’t quite sound like a proper follow-up. My feeble and freshly metal-exposed mind was completely blown away upon hearing this album for the first time (any Archives frequenter who unfortunately saw my previous review for this album posted a few years ago surely picked up on this after the first few sentences), and it really inspired me to pick up a keyboard and attempt to fuse industrial with metal in my own way. Anyone looking to introduce a metal-curious rivethead into the realm of black metal should surely start here, as should anyone looking for an unhealthy dose of industrial metal.

The most telling part of this album is that you could remove all the electronic influences and have essentially the same product in the end. At no point on 'With No Human Intervention' does Aborym's 'industrial' meandering feel like it has a major impact on the character of the music. A couple throwaway electronic tracks don't do it- after they're over, they have no impact on the album as a whole. Neither does the drum machine, which for all its carefully selected pseudo-industrial samples could be just as easily replaced with a human with no change in atmosphere. The little electronic effects and synths? Fairly unimportant in the end; all they provide is simple harmonization or counterpoint melodies to the guitars which could easily be provided by another guitar layer or just left absent entirely to no major effect of the music. For a band so infatuated with emphasizing their industrial elements at every turn, all the electronic noodling never feels very important to the character of the album.

Somewhat inevitably, this is the crux of the problem with this album: nothing feels particularly essential. A big way I judge the quality of the album is how willing I am to leave the room to do something while it's on and if I bother to pause it while I'm gone. In the case of 'With No Human Intervention', I feel like I could leave for whole tracks at a time and not really miss anything; Aborym's ideas on this album are so narrow and heavily repeated that I could select any track on the release and get essentially the same impact. It's weird because this isn't particularly badly composed; it feels like seasoned songwriters are making it, everything is appropriately layered and varied, the playing is all good, but in the end there's a lack of significant essence to this release which makes you feel like you've heard everything the album has to offer inside of five tracks. There's fourteen on the album. Not a great sign of quality.

This can be lightly characterized as 'industrial black metal', but as previously stated the industrial elements don't do much but sit there and be vaguely weird while the band is off actually playing music. So beyond the drum machine and electronic shimmerings, we have a base of relatively melodic black metal that sounds like an even fusion of Dark Funeral and Anorexia Nervosa. It's generally fast and riffy with periodic dips into slower, more grandiose passages, but unfortunately none of the riffs are very striking (especially with production that really deemphasizes the guitars) and I get the feeling that much of the industrial influence is designed to cover up what is essentially uninspired music. When you strip away some of the mildly off-kilter electronic elements, you're left with music that really wouldn't turn any heads, which is a big strike against this release: weird exterior elements should be used to amplify good music, not hide mediocre material.

Attila is really wasted here: he trades in his bizarre, operatic style for essentially conventional black metal snarls, which is particularly odd given the band's penchant for grandiosity in melody and song structures. Wouldn't Attila's typical style of vocals be a huge boon given the style of music itself? In fact, the vocals themselves feel very extraneous, just kind of slathered on top of everything and not really an integral part of the music itself. This makes me wonder what exactly IS integral to the music; the riffs tend to not do a whole lot, the vocals aren't a driving element, and the industrial voices add little, making this an extremely shallow listen with no repeat play value at all. It's cute- too cute for its own good- but has very little meat to keep the listener coming back for more than a curiosity listen once in a blue moon.

This is Aborym's most popular album for reasons I don't fully understand; 'Kali Yuga Bizarre' is by far the best thing the band ever released, but I suppose this got the most attention, as backlash against 'Generator' prevented it from getting a really significant foothold in the metal scene. This album itself can't really be characterized as bad in any significant way, just transparent and eventually kind of pointless. I guess that's how most modern extreme metal is in a way, but typically they don't make it as obvious as this. You can skip this album; what you think it sounds like is exactly how it is, and how you think it sounds isn't nearly as cool as you imagine.

Italy’s Aborym is an intriguingly forward-looking black metal band, forsaking the historical focus and influence typical of much of the genre and incorporating ever more electronic and dance elements to produce something that sounds notably futuristic, or at least highly contemporary. As of their third album, released in 2003, this skilful melding of two vastly different styles is still very much a work in progress.

Aborym is by no means an innovator when it comes to introducing electronic elements into metal, or even black metal specifically, with noted bands such as Anaal Nathrakh concentrating on a similar fusion of styles, a larger number of bands such as Zyklon striving for a more detached and mechanical sound with futuristic themes, and an even greater number experimenting with dance remixes of their own material on B-side releases, often to a less than stellar reception. To its credit, Aborym’s music doesn’t sound like Anaal Nathrakh, which is probably the closest comparison, but neither does this album fully deserve the plaudits granted to it as a perfect synthesis of styles, as the seams and rivets are very often gratuitously on display.

The band possesses a mechanical and inhuman feel from the start, having a drum machine in place of a flesh-and-blood drummer for most of this album, and as expected the industrial elements are chiefly expressed through the shift from black metal’s blast beats and double bass drums to a rave ‘beat’ (yeah alright, I’m not as wordy when it comes to the genres I know nothing about), as well as a greater presence of keyboards and samples. The majority of the album is performed in a surprisingly traditional black metal style that harks right back to the genre’s infernal conception in the mid-80s with bands such as Bathory and later the influential Mayhem, rather than the more modern sound being performed by many of their contemporaries today, but this more simplistic, rhythm-based and incessantly catchy approach aids in the fusion that the band is going for. The drum machine is the most prominent instrument in a rather distracting way, not fooling anyone for a second with its icy lack of energy, while the guitars are mostly restricted to heavily backgrounded riffs with a few acceptable moments in the spotlight, overpowered even by the keyboards that act primarily to maintain the atmosphere of apocalypse, robots or whatever.

By far the most impressive aspect of the album is the vocal performance from black metal icon Attila Csihar, whose range has improved greatly since his performance on Mayhem’s infamous ‘De Mysteriis dom Sathanas’ in 1993. Attila performs primarily in a deep growl, with frequent lapses into ferocious screams and some very effective chant and spoken word sections that suit the album’s less aggressive sections. Less aesthetically and technically impressive is the music’s descent into full rave on two tracks, which sounds equally as derivative and basic as the more dominant, pure black metal sections, and will only serve to annoy black metal fans, or mildly entertain those with a broader mind. The album is at its very best in the moments that harsh and relentless black metal is melded with the apocalyptic intensity of industrial, but sadly these are all too infrequent as the band continues to search for the golden ratio. At fourteen songs and over an hour in length this is a very generous and full release, but lacks any kind of real resonance, making the whole experience something of a drawn-out chore. And I can’t really forgive them for using the word ‘Rave’olution’ in a song title, that just stinks.

1. Antichristian Codec
2. With No Human Intervention
3. U.V. Impaler
4. Humechanics-Virus
5. Does Not Compute
6. Faustian Spirit of the Earth
7. Digital Goat Masque
8. The Triumph
9. Black Hole Spell
10. Me(n)tal Striken Terror Action II
11. Out of Shell
12. Chernobyl Generation
13. The Alienation of a Blackened Heart
14. Automatik Rave’olution Aborym

After a brief atmospheric introduction comes the first real song with the title track, which doesn’t disappoint in offering a full overview of the band’s potential, even if the industrial elements are significantly toned down to avoid alienating metal fans too early on. The techno influence is handled quite well in the first section of the album, creeping in gradually and culminating with ‘Humechanics-Virus’ which sees an effective melding of the percussion styles as well as an overbearing presence of electronic boops. The technological themes of the titles are a reliable indicator of the more dance-based songs on the whole, but very little could compare listeners for the all-out techno of ‘Does Not Compute,’ kept mercifully short at four minutes but abandoning the metal elements altogether. The atmosphere is consistent throughout both styles, conveying the album’s larger sense of depersonalised gloom, but the full-on techno can’t help but stick out far too dramatically, not weird enough, despite its efforts, to join the ranks of Aphex Twin, and far too fast even for the most speed-encrusted raver to get down and boogie to, or whatever these people do.

The advantage of such a deviation is that the next few songs sound practically human by comparison, even extending to the otherwise annoying drum machine. ‘Faustian Spirit of the Earth’ breaks the style with a disappointing dance interlude that seems more in line with pop music, but fortunately makes up for its with a great vocal performance and some fun guitar solos later on. Continuing to develop the style, the album reaches its peak in the middle section, with the experimental ‘Digital Goat Masque’ offering some excellent slower riffs, a harpsichord section and what sounds like a black metal sea shanty, but this is all topped with the best song ‘The Triumph,’ despite its excessive length that borders on ten minutes. The style changes completely from traditional black metal to a more modern meeting of melodic death metal with the grandeur of symphonic black metal, and with its tremolo-picking riffs, extended guitar solos and sweeping atmosphere this sounds like an entirely different band, which isn’t really a compliment to the rest of the recording. The industrial elements are mixed in perfectly as the song continues, losing the metal entirely as it draws to a close in a process of gradual reduction that works very impressively, and distracting even the most keen-eared critics with a very long vocal performance in the form of a female orgasm. It is a very enjoyable song, love, but that’s going a bit too far.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the album falls into a significant slump after this height, returning to the familiar style and churning out several more songs of unimpressive, fairly pointless Bathory-inspired metal that lacks anything in the way of experimentation before the album’s second fully electronic piece ‘Chernobyl Generation,’ an overlong companion to the fifth track that sounds even more derivative of generic techno (even down the bloke-trapped-in-car-boot pulse of the rhythm) but remains listenable for an enjoyable and unexpected vocal performance from Attila, who suits the less intense atmosphere as much as he does the more violent parts of the album. Weirdly, his vocals become completely audible on the brief penultimate track ‘The Alienation of a Blackened Heart’ which sounds entirely like a Bathory homage (or rip-off, depending on your point of view) and is enjoyable for it, even if it doesn’t really fit into the album. The inevitable grand anticlimax comes with the final track, which wastes several minutes of each listener’s life with some indistinct samples, noises and voices.

‘With No Human Intervention’ is a significantly flawed experiment, but I admire it for trying, and for coming so close with the fine songs in the middle. Targeted specifically at fans of both extreme metal and the darker side of dance music, these Italians don’t hold anything back in combining their love of both styles, but lack the inspiration and song-writing ability to produce something that could truly be considered innovative or a masterpiece. ‘The Triumph’ is quite appropriately the closest this comes to meeting the band’s vision, but there’s plenty for black metal fans to enjoy in the form of Attila’s fantastic performance, as well as plenty for them to loathe in the form of the more deviant tracks. Replete with filler, this will provide appropriate background music after the machines take over and decimate our planet, forcing us to work pointlessly in mines to gather the fossil fuels they eat, but until that day this is simply a well-intended oddity gathering dust in strange European music shops.

As far as I am concerned, Aborym - with no human intervention is the ONLY successful hybrid of black metal and Industrial, after heaps of other attempts by artists such as Kovenant and the unrefined Anaal Nathrakh do these neon clad warriors perfect such a sensitive breed of genre.

The riffs are top notch, and the electronics do NOT overpower or mediate away from the musicality of the album (by this i mean it does not sound like two cds are playing on different speakers in the same room) and also the metal and harsh thrashy vocals do not overpower the electronica.

In fact, the metal is so fast but well-produced that when the electronics begin they sound aggressive and brutal, deep and dark (as is the nature of good industrial, i would give examples of similarities but i do not listen to as much of it as i used to).

The techno actually MELDS together at times with the guitars and drums and this is one of the aspects of this album that make it so great. There are absolutely no weak spots, no filler tracks, not even any filler riffs, just an absolutely aggressive, well produced original piece of perfected extreme metal art. It kicks ass from start to finish.

This album surpasses all other albums Aborym has EVER created, which usually consist of only a couple of good tracks spread out with a bunch of filler in between.

This is essential IMO for any collector of extreme music

100/100

I love my Black Metal. Whether it be classic Dark Throne (their latest is simply killer) or Cradle of Filth (so is theirs), I’m not that fussed – all I really care about is the thought, conviction and attitude that these bands display in their music. The more fucked up the better also as far as I am concerned. The latest works of Arkhon Infaustus and Anaal Nathrakh clearly demonstrate how grimly evil this genre can be. Aborym have the same effect. As far as twisting and contorting the Black Metal sound into an entirely new mind bending proposition, Aborym take the title. This is Black Metal that is truly fucked up.

Aborym smacked me upside with their debut disc ‘Kali Yuga Bizarre’ only to floor me with the electronically laden follow up ‘Fire Walk With Us’. If you have these two albums, you already know that Aborym are indeed a most unique Black Metal act. Odd-ball is another descriptive term I’d like to use for Aborym; such is the utter depravity of their new disc ‘With No Human Intervention’

‘WNHI’ is not easy listening. Not such a profound statement - Black Metal generally isn’t that easy on the ear. However, it must be stated clearly that whatever your take on the genre and the countless hybrids that exist around its sound, Aborym are a different proposition all-together. Aborym don’t care for the classic pure black metal sound – they never have - ‘WNHI’ represents a band that has taken the essential Black Metal blue print and twisted it, experimented with it and explored a whole other-worldly limit that often defies description. Only those Black Metal fans with a an open mind need apply here – Aborym are a band that offer no apologies for their bastardization of the BM sound and if you can stomach the experimental angle displayed here, you’re in for one hell of a ride.


Aborym features Atilla Csihar (ex Mayhem) on vocals. Guitarist/noise merchants - Nysrok Infernalien and Sethlan Teitan. Along with Malfeitor Fabban on bass and electronics the line has also been fleshed out by certain high quality guest appearances - Nattefrost from Carpathian Forest, Irrumator from Anaal Nathrakh, and Bard "Faust" Eithun (now with Dissection) join the fold. The resulting 65-minute disc is seriously, a major mind fuck. And loathe that I am to subscribe to the ‘post-black metal’ tag, it is clear that Aborym are about forging their own style beyond the confines of the classic BM sound. According to the band themselves, Aborym play ‘Alien-Black-Hard/Industrial exclusively. Who am I to argue?

But just what does that mean and what does it sound like? Well, this is a cold, harsh, unforgiving musical exploration – the combination of the extremity of Black Metal and the clinical programmed world of technology. There is, just like the monumental ‘Fire Walk…’disc, a serious amount of unforgiving electronica embedded within the body of each and every track on ‘WNHI’. And that is the essential component of Aborym that you need to deal with. If there were Black Metal RAVE parties, Aborym would be well and truly at home on the set list. Yet, I wouldn’t call this dance music folks. The Electronic elements convey a very brooding, menacing atmosphere – its all very aggressive and extreme giving everything a very cold clinical edge. At times, Aborym even forget about the guitar riffs completely – opting to explore some truly nightmarish drum n bass groove on ‘Does not Compute’ and techno trance on ‘Chernobyl Generation’. If it wasn’t enough with the subtler electronica on the other tracks, these two pieces will have the BM purists doing cartwheels.

The production of ‘WNHI’ is extremely sophisticated and professional yet if you seek this disc out in the near future, you might find some of the tracks actually skip every now and then. All of the original pressings do it. This was due to a pressing plant error that affected the mastering. The skipping doesn’t exactly ruin the album, but if you’re not convinced, listen to a copy before you buy.

Whether this is Black Metal is up for debate. Aboyrm could actually care less – yet, to this hacks ears, it is certain that whatever Aborym play, it is extreme. Aborym’s music is also deliberately obscure, complicated and utterly intent on obliterating all boundaries that might set down before it. Along with a visually stunning package ‘WNHI’ is a vivid statement from a band taking the Black Metal sound forward with obdurate ease. It is an exhausting listen, but thoroughly captivating.

What can I say? This is the future of Black metal. By that I mean, you'll have the raw stuff of course, but the majorty will be like this. Natural progression. Black Metal is a ever changing genre. Anyway onto the music.

This album is full of techno/industrial samples, raw guitars, blast beats almost exclusively(done by a drum machine), menacing bass, and the king himself Atilla on vocals. His vocal performance is nothing short of brilliant. Atilla truly is the best Black metal vocalist around today. He utilizes his trademark deep "growl" and also throws in plenty of shrieks, rasps, and downright screaming fury. The guitars are raw as hell, worthy of any early Norwegian band. Although the production is crystal clear, the guitars are still extremely raw sounding, really trebly. The riffs themselves are extremely technical, utilizing the tremelo picked method a lot, with some nice thrashy riffs thrown in too.

On the song The Alienation of a Blackened Heart, Irrumator of Anaal Nathrak does drums, adding that extra bit of fury. There are also plenty of guitar solos scattered throughout the album, adding that extra technical touch to it. The bass is a pounding storm of evil and hatred towards christianity.

Overall this album is downright sick, twisted, evil, and necro as you could want. The industrial/electronic/techno samples only add to the dark and menacing sound. Give this album a serious try. You won't regret it. Oh and it gets many points for just having Atilla on it.

Aborym are an Italian black metal band, led by vocalist Atilla Csihar, who did vocals on Mayhem's "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas." They fuse together early-Bathory style Black Metal and modern industrial/techno. WITH NO HUMAN INTERVENTION is the third full-length release by Aborym, and follows their acclaimed "Fire Walk With Us" album.

First off, the drums reminded me a lot of The Berzerker -- fast, with a techno feel to them. Thankfully, these "techno drums" are not utilized on all the tracks. You may also be interested to know that Atilla's vocal style has changed since his performance on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. They are a lot deeper, and most of the screeching has all but gone. As the title track pounds from my speakers, I know this is going to be an interesting review. I am a fan of good black metal, but I hate techno with a vengeance. On the title track, the buzzing guitars drill insanely, which leads nicely into the rest of the album.

Although the guitars and vocals are good for the most part, the album does have it's weak points. For example, track number five "Does Not Compute" is the most annoying song on the album. No metal to be found at all, pure techno/garage bullshit! The song uses table saw and chainsaw samples over, and over, and over again...very annoying! It is pleasing to the ears to hear the next track, "Faustian Spirit Of The Earth," blast out at full speed, dirty guitars and all. This is the way it remains for most of the album, apart from a some techno crap here and there.

Overall, a good effort by Aborym. I would have enjoyed the album even more if the techno parts were left out, but black metal fans will definitely want to check this one out.

(Originally written by me for http://metal-rules.com)

...but look out for the Techno bits if techno isn't your cup of tea/pint of beer.

This is the third album from Aborym, with Ex-Emperor drummer Faust writing some of the lyrics for the album.

The front cover shows a factory of some sort with an angel behind it, showing a cold, bleak atmosphere to it.

The Drum machine sounds human despite aiding the cold mechanicalness of the guitar and bass rather than the hyper mad drum-fest that is The Berzerker (who, ironicily, do have a human drummer), Attila's (from Tormenter and formerly Mayhem) vocals go from mostly puke/screech to a drone speech, like a robot.

Effects and keyboards, when used properly, enhance the music but it can also ruin an otherwise perfectly good song, an example on how not to use sound effects is at the end of "Me(n)tal Striken Terror Action 2". By Jupiter! It ain't half rubbish 'ere guv'nor! It just ruins the atmosphere, it's like the band just buggered off to a rave party to get stoned or something and forgotten to press the stop button. Same with "The Triumph" though Triumph's isn't bad, just made little sense.

Want Guitars and Drums? Then stay away from the following songs: Antichristian Codec, Does Not Compute, Chernobyl Generation and Automatik Rave'olution Aborym and you better dive for cover than the end of these songs: Humechanics-virus, The Triumph and Me(n)tal Striken Terror Action 2 and the second half of "Out Of Shell".

At least the rest were spared the mess that was Aborym's rave obsession, the best of these songs are "Black Hole Spell", "U.V. Impaler", "With No Human Intervention" and "The Alienation Of A Black Heart".

For those who like their Black Metal pure (Pure Black Metal? isn't that an oxymoron?) stay away from this album but those who like something that stands out from the norm, then give this a spin, you may enjoy this a lot.