Aborted – ManiaCult | Album Review

Organised chaos plunges you deep into Aborted's ManiaCult. The Belgian death metal giants take on a sophisticatedly dark approach to their latest album.

Belgian death metal legends Aborted have been serving up slices of the grotesque from reformed meat made out of human carcasses since their formation in 1995 and 1999 debut The Purity of Perversion. The last 26 years have seen the band become shapeshifters, blazing onto the scene with a merciless brand of deathgrind eventually transitioning into the more groove based side of things. Even so, they have constantly been evolving their crushing brand of death metal by taking on a more technical approach to death metal yet still retaining the vicious brutality that they are known for. If you had to sum up the band’s latest record, ManiaCult, in one word it would be simply this; bludgeoning. 

In what can only be described as sonic lobotomy with a trepanation thrown on top for good measure, ManiaCult is a brutal death metal exhibition. Although the band have not deviated from their signature band of torso crushing, skull splitting riffs, they have amplified the darker elements of their sound. With tracks ‘Verderf’ and ‘Verbolgen’ offering a dark and uncomfortably quiet soundscapes before all chaos is unleashed. The former opens the album with an ominous dissonance akin to those of a sci-fi television series, whereas the latter feels like it is plucked straight from a gothic horror film. While album intros have become commonplace on Aborted records, the insertion of ‘Verbolgen’ as a brief interlude is an interesting one. Offering up a nearly two minute hiatus in the middle of the album demonstrates the dynamic variety that the band wanted to implement on this album. 

This has also allowed a lyrical shift, whilst it is not the Olympic style diving into pools of blood filled with severed heads, or the firing around in someone’s chest cavity, it does capture a more nuanced psychological side of the cult experience. By focusing on the insidious deeds that the ManiaCult have done it offers a change of pace for the band, as they have delved deeper into the mental torture and cruelty that the unwitting cult followers endure. With the added aspect that this could all be happing in someone’s head. Aborted’s multi-faceted approach has delivered a brutal death metal album with significant conceptual depth. Going deeper than the album’s concept, the album touches on mental illness and the inevitable fallout from it, yet also serves as a  scathing commentary on how the masses are controlled by church and state. 

The album transcends a variety of genres on the extreme metal spectrum, which is without a shadow of a doubt the reason for Aborted’s longevity. The ability to evolve without sacrificing the core principles of their music is something not all bands can do. The album’s earworms crawl out of the cesspits and creep up on you lodging ManiaCult’s haunting melodies within the depths of your brain. The blackened elements within ‘Impetus Odi’ and ‘Portal To Vacuity’ serve to amplify and further demonstrate the dark elements the band wanted to fuse into this album, which they have done incredibly successfully. Whilst ‘I Prediletti – The Folly of the Gods’ and ‘Grotesque’ are more standard skull bludgeoning Aborted fare. 

Given its conceptual depth and genre transcending riffs this album is first and foremost a brutal death metal album and just like Ronseal it does exactly it does exactly what it says on the tin. Offering up a whiplash inducing battering that will leave your body broken and bleeding. An absolutely skull splitting album that proves why Aborted are one of the most significant bands in the genre and still a formidable force to be reckoned with.