Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Orto Bar
Concert date: 25.06.2012
Attendance: 100
Summer is supposed to be the season of easygoing music, heavy metal and open-air festivals. But it can also be the time for brutal death metal backed by the most nauseating gore lyrics ever to come out of the head of Sven de Caluwe, mastermind of the Belgian outfit Aborted, who stopped by the Orto Bar butcher shop on Monday to present their freshly released album Global Flatline.
The first to give Orto Bar a proper shake were local death metal hopefuls Mephistophelian, who recently came this close to a big win at the Wacken Metal Battle, but in Croatia the guys just had to hand the victory to a Croatian band. No biggie, they keep on slaughtering without mercy with a crushing brand of death metal, marked by a meat grinder of brutal riffs, cannon-fire drumming, truly dynamic bass lines (reminiscent of the phenomenal Alex Webster) and a versatile vocalist who can pull off screaming as well as aggressive growling and really deep piggy »bre-bre« parts. That vocal duality was a perfect match for the headliners this time, since Sven from Aborted uses similar vocal techniques too. Mephistophelian mostly swim in familiar death metal waters, but what saves them from being generic is excellent execution with good ideas and an uncompromising approach, so good that you feel like Pinhead himself is walking you to the lathe: »Welcome to the Worst Nightmare of All: Reality!« We haven’t heard death metal this good here at home since Supremacy at the very least!
The Belgian outfit (well, Belgian only because of frontman and sole remaining original member Sven de Caluwe) then treated our ears to a sick, twisted, bastard mix of death metal and grind. Aborted last played here in December, when they were celebrating the tenth anniversary of Engineering the Dead on tour. This time they chopped their way into Ljubljana with the fresh record Global Flatline. Sven and his murderous gang hacked Orto into a puddle of blood, with killer tracks following one after another. Sven grunted like a boar and squealed like Babe, while the band sliced and sawed without mercy like Leatherface, Mike Myers and Jason rolled into one. The band’s punch carried over to the crowd, who, Monday or not, showed a bit more energy than earlier during Mephistophelian. There was no shortage of slaughterhouse stompers like Coronary Reconstruction, nor of songs for the ladies (Meticulous Invagination) and songs about poop (Expurgation Euphoria). All of it seasoned with Sven’s awesome, twisted banter. It’s great to hear that the Global Flatline tracks can hold their own against the classics from Goremageddon and The Archaic Abattoir with no major trouble. As a huge Carcass fan, I only missed a medley from Slaughter & Apparatus, which is heavily inspired by those death/grind giants. After a solid hour, Aborted left Orto with nothing but entrails hanging off the walls, human remains smeared across the floor and audience members moaning in a heap of blood. Short but sweet. Like a glass of fresh, chilled, just-pumped blood.
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