Album Review: Aborym – Hostile (Dead Seed Productions)

Italian industrial electronic metallers Aborym are back with their most challenging studio album to date in “Hostile”. The follow-up to “Shifting.negative”, Aborym’s mission is simply to make music that has never been heard before.

Explains Fabrizio Giannese ((vocals, synths, modular synths, programming):

I’ve always had a fascination with challenging myself and even when I was a kid, I wanted to be different, I loved to experiment. I’ve always gotten a lot of enjoyment when I’m in a challenging situation and I have to learn something else, and I still do. I think it is innately inside me. Part of you doesn’t really realize just how cool it is not to give a fuck, you know? I am very concerned about like, ‘Is this working?’. Not giving a fuck is a way of giving more love because you’re free.

It lets you be more creative and dynamic and louder and more fun and sadder and everything. We just tried to play the music we feel, like a therapy. Music is a therapeutic path for me and I try to not play music just to please the fans. People are always going to categorize you. It can definitely be frustrating. But I don’t feel any pressure to be anything for anyone. I don’t feel like I have to be the frontman in any certain way, and I think that’s part of the power of the band. If I was a solo artist and I had four managers telling me what to do, I’d feel stressed out… But we really feel grounded with each other.

You can’t write the same type of song over and over and over again, so I think that’s one of the challenges, to feel like, ‘Yeah, I did something different here’. ‘Hostile’ will be our eighth album and I think for us it was really important to try and find our playfulness again. So, in that sense it gets harder with every album but we really made music just because it was our favorite thing to do ever. It still is.

Hostile will be released as digipak CD and digital on February 12th 2021 on Dead Seed Productions, while the vinyl version will be out in April 2021.

The word ‘challenging’ is apt. As is the word ‘unique’ or the word ‘experimental’. Aborym test not just the norms of heavy music but the norms of electronica and industrial with an album that is undoubtably hostile.

Over an hour long, there’s a lot to get through here but through the sheer power of their imagination, the length never becomes an issue. There’s too much going on. Too many elements to pick out and analysis. From the very moment Disruption introduces Hostile with whispered vocals and light electronica to the eerie, uplifting weirdness and captivating finale of Magical Smoke Screen, this is an album that delivers a remarkable experience.

Unlike many other acts that deal in the industrial metal/electronica metal side of things, Aborym isn’t weighted to one or the other. It is a very well-balanced record that all sides can enjoy and that’s before we even talk about some of the more surprising moments.

As we said already, it’s very experimental and that is portrayed in different ways. Ways that include uncomfortable psychedelic moments with fuzzy edges. Sudden bursts of electronica speed that feel like a drug-induced trip and strange melodies showing up when least expected. It makes for constant game of ‘guess what is coming next?’ where the only answer is … something bizarre but no doubt, fascinating.

Most bands would crash and burn trying to make a 14-track, 66-minute-long album of industrial rock and metal compelling. Aborym don’t even come close to those others, instead rising high up into the sky and leaving all others in their wake.

Aborym – Hostile Full Track Listing:

1. Disruption
2. Proper Use Of Myself
3. Horizon Ignited
4. Stigmatized (Robotripping)
5. The End Of A World
6. Wake Up Rehab
7. Lava Bed Sahara
8. Radiophobia
9. Sleep
10. Nearly Incomplete
11. The Pursuit Of Happiness
12. Harsh And Educational
13. Solve Et Coagula
14. Magical Smoke Screen

Links

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