Aborted - TerrorVision

I was just writing, in my post about Horrendous’ latest album, about the ubiquitousness of explosive blast beats and bellowing death growls in today’s death metal landscape. I found Horrendous’ album to be a refreshing change of pace in how it manages to create a strong, frightening atmosphere by taking a more classic, yet progressive approach to modern death metal, which was made possible by modest drumming, tasteful string technicality, and distinctly non-growled vocals. Nevertheless, the gratuitous brutality of machine canon drumming, legionic growls, crushing grooves, and mind-melting shredding have become death metal standard for good reason. And Aborted show just why that is on TerrorVision.

Like just about all of Aborted’s recent work, TerrorVision is an avid display of the kind of death metal that has characterized most of their catalog and most of this decade. At this point the band have long been revered professionals in this field, and an album of such efficient brutality is the expectation for them, like a professional sports team should be able to comfortably outclass semi-pros and amateurs, even if they’re a lower tier team. I wouldn’t call Aborted a lower tier team (they’ve shown a machine-like ability to crank out death metal at its most potent concentrations), but I don’t really list them as one of my favorites in their field either. However, I can’t really say anything bad about their catalog in general other than  how seamlessly it blends into its environment. That being said, Aborted have performed their role in that environment with a liveliness that has kept them stable since roughly the start of the century, maintaining that sense of drive for the extreme within their ecosystem, and TerrorVision is yet another display of that hunger. Unlike some bands whose continued production of very similar material across their discography reeks of laziness, what Aborted do across theirs is a feat of strength, like an acrobat that consistently nails their stunts amid various backdrops. To the point, TerrorVision is ripping, apocalyptic, brutal death metal that gets it’s job done and does it well from the vocal performances, to the guitar grooves, to the solos, to the drumming. Everything is on point and put together professionally.

There really isn’t much beyond being a solid display of modern death metal to say about TerrorVision. The band don’t really go off on any experimental tangents or try to work in any insecure gimmicks. They pretty much only do what they are expected to, but with a surefire proficiency that shows their experience.