Aborted - Necrotic Manifesto (Gate) [LP]

Finally available on vinyl again. Black vinyl in gatefold sleeve. By 2014, Belgian death metal veterans Aborted had firmly established themselves as master craftsmen of controlled chaos, and "The Necrotic Manifesto" proved to be their most ambitious statement yet. Conceptually, the album represented their own take on "the sordid tales of the Necronomicon, the book of the dead, of a corpse drowned in a tepid sauce made of gore and fun, covered with a good old 80's slasher vibe" - basically everything a horror-obsessed metalhead could want. What made this eighth full-length special wasn't just the Hellraiser obsession (though the closing track "Cenobites" was a delightful reference to Pinhead and the series). This was an exercise in deathgrind brutality that somehow managed to be aggressive, intense, violent and horrific while remaining surprisingly catchy and memorable. The album was amazingly well-rounded for brutal death metal. Jacob Hansen's production once again gave them that surgical precision, while guest spots from Vincent Bennett (The Acacia Strain) and Phlegeton (Wormed) added extra venom. The album showcases Aborted at their most uncompromisingly brutal yet surprisingly sophisticated.