Metal Underground.com

Aborted takes a harsh but heady approach on their latest album, "Strychnine.213." The band plays voraciously, but keeps their minds in the mix, as the technicality of what’s on display is difficult to question. They give solid cuts here and there and always let on the gas for an extreme display when it’s necessary. The band plays aggressively, but lets a little bit of melody enter into their music to change the mood up from time to time. It’s easy to become overly concerned with brutalizing their approach, but this is not quite the case with Aborted, who's able to make a decent sounding recording out of everything.

Thus we can see the band cruising along and adding small nuances to make a platter of death metal to be enjoyed by all. "Strychnine.213" can somewhat be compared to Carcass’ "Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious" masterpiece, and although there are some hints of that album’s greatness to be found, it doesn’t quite hold up as a whole as well. The nicely titled “Ophiolatry on a Hemocite Platter” shows the versatility of Aborted as well as anything on here, as they bring some nice chops and hooks to the table.

There are indeed some moments where the carnage drags and the band loses their momentum slightly, but the majority of the music to be found here is quite exciting. Aborted manages to throw in enough twists and turns to throw off the listener while they keep themselves in check throughout. This creates a niche for Aborted to play within and they do so quite well. Fans of good death metal would be advised to check out "Strychnine.213." While it’s not the most mind-blowing release the genre has ever seen by any means, there’s enough on the table to satisfy.