Release Date - 15th March 2024
Label - Nuclear Blast
Words- Tony Bliss
There are few bands that deliver the unvarnished, blood ‘n’ guts delights of modern death metal quite like Aborted. With an unbreakable knack for topping themselves record after record, you would be forgiven for assuming that Vault Of Horrors (their twelfth full length) is their finest work yet, as even a cursory listen to these ten tunes will confirm it - this is Aborted at their remorselessly brilliant best.
Indeed, whilst they have always been consummate pros at nailing the basics, there is an air of dynamic mischief to the Aborted playbook nowadays which dials in on the precision and power of extreme metal’s new breed just as much as the old school’s immortal template. Just check out recent single ‘Death Cult’, which stomps its big size tens with increasing bullishness as it devolves deeper and deeper into deathcore territory (a guest appearance from Despised Icon’s Alex Erian lends an expert hand in this regard). Elsewhere, a sub-two minute ‘Insect Politics’ engages fully-fledged, phlegm-spitting grindcore mode, whilst album highlight ‘The Golgothan’ spells out the apocalypse in ginormous grooves and high-level tech-death, and closer ‘Malevolent Haze’ is an aural litany of the grotesque, frontman Sven de Caluwe the belching, gurgling epicenter as the band deliver uniformly stunning lead-breaks and pitiless blasting.
Perhaps it’s easy at this stage in the game to take Aborted for granted - especially with the death metal scene as fertile and flourishing as it is - however there is little denying that the Belgians are already established as all-time greats, and Vault Of Horrors strikes gold with the sort of hit rate most of their peers could only ever dream of.
8.5/10
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