| Reviews for Aborted's Strychnine.213 |
| I'm afraid I misunderstand? - 95% |
| Written by landon
on January 3rd, 2009
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| Perhaps I am missing something, but don't entirely understand why Strychnine.213 gets so much shit from the metal community. I love it, as a matter-of-fact, its my second favorite Aborted album to date. Now before the shit starts to fly, my first favorite Aborted album is Goremageddon: The Saw & Carnage Done, a choice which many Aborted fans would agree with. But why do I enjoy Strychnine so much? Because its something new. I enjoy the senseless brutality and mind-boggling speed of this kind of music just as much as anyone else, but this is Aborted's 6th studio album, and who wants to hear the same recycled formula over and over again? The presence of melody on this album, in my mind, is Aborted's way of staying relevant. Let's not pretend here, brutal death metal is a fairly limited genre. And when you've lasted as long as Aborted has lasted, members changes and all, you're going to run out of ideas eventually. If you don't like the new sound of Aborted, that's your preference, but don't bash them. They're just exploring new territory. If you were in the band, you'd probably not want to play the same chug-chug riffs over and over again, album after album. Hell, they lost a guitar player over that very issue! The new direction isn't a sign of their sound being dulled down; they still remain extremely brutal. They've simply combined they're brutality with something new. Take "I35" for example. It retains the blistering speed from past albums, but they also added more melodic guitar leads, and it makes the song more interesting, without butchering the flow of it. In my opinion, what Aborted fans SHOULD be saying, instead of "wow, they sure have lost they're touch", is "wow, they've really found a way to be creative!" To this long-time fan of all things brutal, the sound of Strychnine.213 was a risk that Aborted took after over 10 years of creating some of the most devastatingly brutal music in the death/grind genre, and I think its a risk they should be rewarded for. |
| Something's missing. - 45% |
| Written by MikeyC
on October 10th, 2008
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| Strychnine.213 is probably the weakest album of Aborted’s discography. Released less than two years after their last effort, the rushed nature seems to show through. Whether this was the fault of the band themselves or their record company wanting them to release something else quickly is still a mystery. At any rate, this is what has been produced and it’s not as good. I’ve liked all of their releases to some degree, for different reasons. While this album is still Aborted, it doesn’t give us a reason to come back, and not listen to their other albums. I mean, think of it: The goregrind of The Purity Of Perversion? Gone. The brutality and speed of Goremageddon? Gone. The catchy groove of The Archaic Abattoir? Gone. This is a very substandard concoction of seemingly throwaway riffs and melodic leads (way more melodic than any other release…the beginning of “A Murmur In Decrepit Wits” for example), all wrapped in a production too clean for it’s own good. I have no problem with clean production, but this particular production, with the music itself, seems to have no lasting power. There are barely any riffs or sections of the music that you will want to remember because they are all so…well, I hesitate to use the word “bad”, because they’re not bad at all. “Mediocre” is more like it. Still, this album can still be enjoyed somewhat. It’s still undoubtedly Aborted, and some fans will be able to see some good in it. “The Chyme Congeries” is not such a bad song, and keeps my interest throughout. Perhaps what makes this song more enjoyable than most of the others on this album is the fact that there are NO melodic leads anywhere. When Aborted go back to just writing brutal songs, I feel it works better for them. I mean, the follow-up, “A Murmur In Decrepit Wits”, is much, much more melodic, and not surprisingly, it’s not as good. Funny enough, the most brutal song on here has to be the Pantera cover of “Slaughtered”. While I’m not familiar with the original, Aborted’s version sounds very heavy, and all the songs on here should’ve been as intense as that. The band members are still as competent here as they have been at any other release. I don’t see any reason to bash their playing abilities, because they can all still accomplish their respective roles in the band. I could even go as far as to say they’re getting better as time goes on, but that doesn’t mean they play better riffs, of course. Weighing up the good and bad points of this album, there are many more bad points than good, and as such, this album will be classed as Aborted’s worst. I can see how it’s good enough for others, but for me, there is just something missing in the music, and it’s much too noticeable. If you’ve never heard Aborted, this is definitely not where you should begin. Here’s hoping they can do a little better on their next album. |
| It works for me. - 80% |
| Written by Necropsychotic
on September 24th, 2008
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| Aborted has gone through many a change throughout their careers. They started off as a very brutal five-piece. Then they experimented and went through many trials and tribulations. They eventually started moving over to a more melodic side of death metal. Now fast forward to today. Almost completely gone is the brutal aspect of this Belgian outfit and in comes melody and some hints of technicality. I guess you can call it a melodic technical death metal outfit for the time being. The guitars on this album do their job. Sure you have the chugs and the breakdowns, but does that really constitute them becoming a deathcore band? Absolutely not. The guitars provide intricate melody and good technical parts where fitting. The riffs put forth on this album are very different from what we're used to from Aborted, but it still works. The guitar solos also never fail to intrigue from this band, as expected. They have moved on from the straightforward one-dimensionality of brutal death metal and decided to create a more relaxed, for lack of a better word, atmosphere and a greater depth to their riffs. It would seem that Aborted's guitarists wanted to push the experimental nature of the band to a completely new level, and succeeded in doing so. The drummer does a good job in making the album stay interesting. He changes up just in time to keep the listener in suspense and wondering what's next. The drums fills in this album are well done, but my problem is that they are recycled into other songs. I found myself saying, "Hey, didn't I hear that a song or two ago?", quite a few times. Luckily, the drums were not at the forefront of the album, constantly suffocated by the vocals and guitars, so the drums did not pose a big problem for me. Sven never fails in his vocal duties to this band. He has a pretty good range of vocals on this album, from a gurgling scream, to a high pitched shriek, not unlike a black metal vocalist. He has really gained a good range over the years. His addition to this band is truly priceless, as he is a unique vocalist. Without him, there would never be Aborted. His ability to speed up his vocals and then slow them down is impressive as well. In conclusion, this record is a good addition to the already great discography of Aborted. They have pushed the bounds of experimentation and put out a good melodic/technical death metal album. Going in a completely different direction than previous albums, they may have alienated some fans on this album because of the lack of brutal overtones. But what those fans fail to realize is that Aborted has matured. They decided to not stick to the same old formula. While it's not their best album, it is a very solid album. I would recommend it to anyone ho is willing to listen to something new, and to Aborted fans who are willing to shed all past judgements of them and prepare for something completely new. |
| Unoriginality And Boredom Strives - 17% |
| Written by mouritsdebeer
on August 18th, 2008
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| About a year and 4 months after the release of "Slaughter & Apparatus: A Methodical Overture" there was absolutely no way of guessing the outcome to Strychnine.213. All that could have been guessed would of course be that the sounds (no brutality, bare technicality, experimental vocals etc.) of the previous album would definitely dominate in this one. On the release date of Strychnine.213 all the worries from brutal death metal fans were answered and disappointment could not be more present. Strychnine.213 might as well be a remastered, reissue of Slaughter & Apparatus: A Methodical Overture. In most cases an album sounding the same as the previous would be a good thing (Exhibit A: Bolt Thrower) but when it is in terms of a sell-out band quickly grasping at those notes of cash falling away from them as they get closer to the likes of death-mallcore, it is most definitely a bad thing. Almost everything about Aborted has changed since the beast of an album, The Purity of Perversion, was released. The guitar chords lost distortion and have the melody of a Children of Bodom keyboardist (I'm not saying that melody is bad, it is of course the structure holding the song together! Sadly ... this would be a good thing only if your not trying to mix technicality and brutality with melody while failing in accomplishing all 3; just like Aborted do in this album). The entire song structure is so boring that is impossible to listen and not to compare it to almost every song on Slaughter & Apparatus: A Methodical Overture. This entire album strives for unoriginality and will bore you out of your skull if you were expecting to headbang to something brutal. The only positive attribute in this album would be the drums, as they are probably the only think keeping me from giving this a rating of less than 17: It is not brutal; it is the expected for any techdeath band, but for some obscure reason I just love the drums in every Aborted song. Sadly it is not only the drums that create the music, it is the music as a whole and it doesn't work. Aborted need to lose the clean/screaming vocalist because it does not work. Reminds me of new In Flames................ Seeing Aborted, being brutal death metal gods, resorting themselves to this level is blasphemy. If you are a true brutal fan then buy The Purity of Perversion or Engineering the Dead. This album is to brutal death metal what mallcore is to true metal. To all Aborted fans: Avoid if possible |
| Brutal enough for SINCERE listener! - 90% |
| Written by zgole
on July 25th, 2008
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| I don’t think that anyone serious about music could say that Aborted once were good band, and nowadays they are just trendy or whatever. But many people “into Death Metal” say that kind of stuff. You know what? You have to be crazy, or totally uninterested, or a true hater to say something stupid like that. Aborted once presented one of the most brutal bands on the scene. So what? Now they are brutal and interesting, creative, original, exciting band. And that is happening from “Goremageddon...” till today. Last year they released something really wild, that insane “Slaughter...” album, and a year and something after they bring us logical continuation with “Strychnine.213”. And I can tell you; this is one hell of an album. “Strychnine.213” sounds really, really good – maybe not “brutal” enough, maybe not by-recipe enough, maybe not progressive or whatever enough, but be sure that you will hear some very decent Death Metal, unpretentiously speaking. Just listen. Haters, you should be realistic about Aborted – it’s not the same band anymore, physically. Singer Sven is original member; other guys are here from year 2005/06/07, so line-up is relatively fresh, like the sound. On the other hand, it’s not the same band musically, so don’t criticize them from a “goredeathgrind-is-only-good-music” point of view. That is very infantile. Anyway, what we got here is Brutal/Groovy/MeloDeath/Death’n’Roll album; perfect and insane riffing, raging perfectly played drums, and, off course, very aggressive and guttural vocals, with time-to-time screams; but I would say, it’s DEATH METAL, no more or less. Rarely nice created and played. I wouldn’t even bother mentioning one or two best songs, it’s simply good DM madness. Nearly perfect. |
| It's Official: Aborted Is Dead - 15% |
| Written by bl00df1r3d34th
on July 9th, 2008
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| It was quite interesting to hear that Aborted were making yet another album, but this album was released less than two years after "Slaughter and Apparatus: A Methodical Overture". By interesting, I don't mean I was happy for it. When it comes to modern day Aborted, you just had to see what kind of fuck up they could abort out next. Apparently we have the worst thing they came out with yet: a shallow and pathetic attempt in mixing brutality with melody. I couldn't even believe in actually visualizing Aborted putting effort into this album. The riffs are nothing more than your average regurgitated death metal affair, in which they are plain and utterly generic. Remember when the band actually wrote some good riffs on "Engineering the Dead" and "Goremageddon"? They've completely vanished, but that's completely expected when your only original member is the vocalist. The music sounds like the group wanted to use the copy-paste mechanism by taking the simpler chords of their earlier works and take out any quality left in them. It all comes out to one thing: an inconsistent mess of songs over saturated with water that any remarkable qualities are drowned out. The production is terrible. It seems like the band wanted to really get this album out to the masses so badly that this didn't care how it was produced. Too bad the result is something that sounds like the dynamics were filtered out. If it wasn't for the new Cryptopsy album, I feel that this would be the worst death metal release of 2008. It's not like you'd expect much quality music in the genre due to the formula repetitively beating a dead horse, but that really isn't as bad as a band completely going down the drain. You may think that this is still Aborted with their obsession with gore, pathology and many pretentious medical terms in their song titles, but just wait until you witness such an underwhelming disaster of an album like this. |
| Cobbled-Up Carcass - 40% |
| Written by Shirt_Guy
on June 26th, 2008
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| I’m surprised something like this doesn’t happen more often - a certain band member leaves, and the rest of the band is unable to recapture the essential sound. That’s exactly what happened to Aborted, which basically turns “Strychnine.213” into cobbled-up bits of death metal, melodic death metal and death rock, except none of the pieces flow together, they’re just stuck together like bits of uninspired generic tedium. Sure it’s an attempt to basically pull Carcass together from their gore/grind, melodic death metal and death rock eras all together on one album, but “Heartwork” has proven to be one of the hardest melodic death metal bands to rip off, meaning anything related to melodic death metal on “Strychnine.213” comes through like the 4th recycling of harmonies from Sweden. Everything is trodden down in a muddy morass of low-end production, loose drumming, snares comes close to clicks, and Sven de Caluwe’s slurred low growls. His vocals could be a high point, as he has a wonderful deep growl, accented by piercing screams, all he needs to do is pronounce the lyrics (yes, that’s an important skill, even in death metal!) The end result is like throwing several puzzles together, forcing the pieces together, then giving up and using white school glue. Originally posted at http://www.waytooloud.com |