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Belgian export Aborted are just as happy telling wet fart jokes as they are purveying some of the finest death metal on the continent. Over the course of the group’s 20-plus career, they’ve transformed—via tongue-through-cheek and gross-out histrionics—from minor curio to the Powerhouse from Flanders. The ascent through death metal’s maggot-infested, disease-ridden ranks didn’t come easy, however. Starting with 2003’s stab-to-the-face Goremageddon: The Saw and the Carnage Done, Aborted crawled through some of the most disgusting sewers, serviced some of the wickedest human waste plants, and cleaned up Europe’s most brutal crime scenes. From there, it’s been nothing but golden showers and true reverence (by fan and peer alike) across six agonizingly good full-lengths. But Aborted aren’t that funny. They are, however, sickly serious and positively savage.

“We take everything we do very serious, even our shitty ass jokes,” says founding member and frontman Sven ‘Svencho’ de Caluwé. “In all honesty, we take everything music related, performance and show related extremely serious, when it comes to imagery it’s more about being who we are, which is, a bunch of nerds playing music we love and enjoying it, and it shows from stage banter to our merchandise and visual style. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t well thought out.”

Brawn over brains—or gurgling guts over smart-ass smarts—has been Aborted’s musical motto since they plunged out of death metal’s womb with aplomb. Early demos The Splat Pack and The Necrotorous Chronicles proved they were super-keen on cleaning up Repulsion’s coffin maggots and Autopsy’s charred remains to think (hard) beyond the dilapidated funeral home they called a hovel for the better part of their existence. The follow-up to 2016 face-smash, Retrogore, is the harrowingly named TerrorVision. But it’s not just the title that’s impressive. On TerrorVision, Aborted rivet death metal to the proverbial prep table. Some of the sickest riffs, sleaziest—OK, sexiest—grooves, and most insane blasts in Aborted’s history can be found nestled inside TerrorVision’s terribly formidable suite of songs. Aborted’s girth…er, growth is noticeable.

“Sort of like saying the penis gel we bought a while ago is finally paying off and that nice girth is setting in,” Svencho says. “I think we can attribute it to the fact that we have done some very restrictive touring for Retrogore. Meaning to that we were very picky about tours and did some more high-profile stuff with a very clear focus of what we want to do. We were also very conscious that Retrogore was just one step into evolving our sound more. We took advantage of the time we had at home to write, write and rewrite as much as we could to get to the best result. So, definitely a lot of time and effort and detail work went into TerrorVision.”

Terrorvision isn’t just the follow-up to Retrogore either. Written over a year and a half with producer Kristian ‘Kohle’ Kohlmannslehner, Aborted’s 10th full-length advances on Retrogore’s devilish descant by raising the stakes substantially. Quality over quantity. Songs like “Farewell to the Flesh,” “Squalor Opera,” “Verspertine Decay,” and the title track are Aborted on fire, inspired by their own wickedness and informed by the nasty doings of others. There may be no finer death metal record in 2018 than TerrorVision.

“We wanted to keep the intensity, brutality and atmosphere we already set with the band,” says Svencho. “So, it’s in line with that, but we wanted to add this new dimension to it, as well as much more diversity and catchy vocal choruses, if there even is such a thing in death metal. Honestly, we are all very proud about all the songs on the record and the ones that didn’t make it on there. [They’ll] get released later on. “Vespertine Decay,” “Exquisite Covinous Drama, “Visceral Despondency” and the title track are some of my favorites.”

The lyrics for TerrorVision diverge from Retrogore and its predecessors. Instead of taking Fulci-driven fantasies and Argento-inflected aspirates to their next logical conclusion, Svencho switched it up, opting to use ‘80s horror movies as a lens into what’s happening in the world today. Beastly disguised behind putrescent prose, tracks like “Visceral Despondency,” “A Whore d’Oeuvre Macabre,” and “The Final Absolution” are heavy in their observation and meaningful in their conveyance.

“This record is quite different from any we have done before,” Svencho says. “It is, more or less, about what is going on with the world right now, all in Aborted sauce obviously. There is a deeper meaning, layered thoughts in there, more so than before. Think of TerrorVision as if it were an ‘80s horror movie talking about how the media in general is some sort of evil, demonic presence that is manipulating the opinion of the masses by spreading hate, fear, bigotry, terror, racism and all those fun things that make humans the most terrible thing to have ever happened to this planet. So, there is quite some stuff going on there that is not just the typical gore lyrics.”

TerrorVision’s drums and vocals were recorded by Kohlmannslehner at Kohlekeller Studios in Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany over a two-and-a-half-week period, while the guitars and bass were recorded by guitarists Mendel bij de Leij and Ian Jekelis at Aborted’s home studio in Heerenveen, Netherlands. Kohlmannslehner then assembled the recorded carnal chanteys to mix and master. The result is massively massive and harmoniously heavy. Helps too that this is Kohlmannslehner’s third Aborted project.

“Kohlmannslehner has been doing every release for us after The Necrotic Manifesto,” says Svencho. “He’s close to the band, he knows what we want, and he is very opinionated, which we were not used to at first! But it’s good because he is very invested in the project and from early on he was adding his thoughts on structures or riffs, he composed some of the interlude/samples/keys that are on the record, so he definitely was part of the team from start to finish on this record. He’s a very driven and creative mind to work with.”

Aborted needed a brazen cover to coincide with their next-level death metal beat down on TerrorVision, so they hired Swedish artist Pär Olofsson to conjure up a gore-soaked version of Bladerunner. The inside panels were done by returning Aborted artist and collaborator, Coki Greenway, who’s done work for Nuclear Assault, Devourment, Machine Head, and more. In the end, the cover to TerrorVision is horrifying to look at let alone imagine. It’s the sum of all our fears in unrecognizable monster form.

“We were extremely pleased with the cover for Retrogore and we were not going to settle for less, so we decided to hire Pär for this one,” Svencho says. “After a couple of emails about the concept and one or two drafts from his side he came up with the cover art. We had a couple fixes to it which were honestly minor. He really knocked it out of the park in no time and exactly brought to the table we wanted. The colors are quite unique and unsettling (green and red is a terrible visual combo, for nightmares really, on the psyche) so it just worked. We were blown away and he was definitely the right choice.”

Aborted are: Sven ‘Svencho’ de Caluwé (vocals), Ken Bedene (drums), Mendel bij de Leij (guitars), Ian Jekelis (guitars) and Stefano Franceschini (basses). They want you to listen to…no, worship TerrorVision. Just don’t expect Aborted to clean up the mess you make thereafter. They’re still on clean up duty. Boy, Repulsion and Autopsy made a real mess all those years ago.

Cryptopsy is an influential extreme metal band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. For over 20 years, they have sculpted and pushed the boundaries of their metal genre by releasing seven studio albums (Blasphemy Made Flesh, None So Vile, Whisper Supremacy, And Then You’ll Beg, Once Was Not, The Unspoken King and CRYPTOPSY), a live album (None So Live), a best of (The Best of Us Bleed) and an two EPs (Ungentle Exhumation and The Book of Suffering – Tome I). After being on a record label for their entire career, Cryptopsy decided to go independent in 2012. Supported by their fans, Cryptopsy distributed and sold thousands of albums across the globe and had the opportunity to tour Japan, Western and Eastern Europe, the UK, South America, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Now in 2018, Cryptopsy will release the second instalment (Tome II) of their series of EPs entitled The Book of Suffering. The band has said that The Book of Suffering – Tome II is some of the most intense, gnarly, brutal yet organic material they have written to date.

HIDEOUS DIVINITY’s music starts taking form in January 2007 between Oslo (Enrico, former founding member of HOUR OF PENANCE now living in Norway) and Rome (Synder & Mauro, both members and ex-members of HOUR OF PENANCE and EYECONOCLAST). The aim is to come out with some real, straight-in-your-face unholy death metal: in other words, the only music in the world that deserves to be played.

The two songs featuring the “Sinful Star Necrolatry” were written and arranged by Enrico during 2007 and finally recorded by Enrico, Synder and Mauro in September, 2007 at the 16th Cellar Studios by the sound-engineer and long-time friend Stefano “Saul” Morabito (who also took care of the mixing).

After a long period of silence due to Enrico’s relocation in Italy in early 2009 and his subsequent rejoining with HOUR OF PENANCE (from which he will part ways again in fall 2009), the band is finally back on tracks with a new lineup featuring master vocalist Enrico H., Flavio and Fabio respectively shredding bass and guitar, while “Mad Horse” Mizio takes care of keeping tornado beats.

A new song, “Cerebral Code Of Obeisance”, sublimates the regained state of health of HIDEOUS DIVINITY that gains a multi albums deal with UNIQUE LEADER and a partecipation to INFERNO FESTIVAL 2011 in Oslo, ready to release their first full-length of their career in spring 2012.

“Obeisance Rising”, a concept album based on John Carpenter’s masterstroke “They Live” is out, great reviews worldwide, the band parts ways with Flavio, Mizio and Fabio. Giulio Galati on drums, Stefano Franceschini on bass and Antonio Poletti on guitar join what becomes the best HIDEOUS DIVINITY’s lineup ever. Get ready to be torn to shred!

Ecryptus began as a band of rogue Jedi in 2001 and turned to the Dark Side in 2008. 
We have played shows with bands such as:Dragonforce, Lacuna Coil, The Black Dahlia Murder, Amorphis, Between the Buried and Me, Vader, Cattle Decapitation, Daath, Arsis, Misery Index, Malevolent Creation, Mortician, Incantation, Into Eternity, The Chasm, Beyond The Embrace, Single Bullet Theory, The Red Chord, Viel of Maya, Agony Scene, Ion Dissonance, As Blood Runs Black. The Faceless, Withered, Epoch of Unlight, Brodequin and many local Sith lords.