Metal | Post-metal | Progressive metal
50%
Abort—Past (2023)
Details
Released on Sunday 19 November 2023.
For fans of Dir En Grey, Svalbard, and The Gazette.
Band
- Vocals / lyrics—Atsushi
- Music (including guitar)—Jin-
Tracks
- Six feet under, 1987
- Aphrodite (feat. Aobara Akari)
- Bury my life
- Bias
- Sarcasm (Armo mix)
- NPD
- Karma
- The core
- Pride
- The funeral, 2012
Review
Japanese band Abort formed in the spring of 2018. Within a few years, they had released two EPs and one album. An experimental and post metal / progressive metal-based visual kei band (a category of Japanese musicians that have a strong focus on extravagant stage costumes) based in Nagoya, Abort combine heavy sounds with other genre aesthetics, they tell us, ‘poisonously’.
Their music depicts various dark sides of social norms and human beings, especially the imperfection of nature, attempting to fuse heavy and soft musical components to manifest cohesive world-building.
This is… quite an unusual album, with tracks raning from the beautifully sublime to the darkly disturbing.
The opening track, “Six feet under, 1987” (track 1) is quite unrepresentative of the album as a whole. An almost sub-aquatic soundscape, it is hauntingly beautiful with an edge of the sinister.
This gently unsettling introduction jars with the violent onslaught that is “Aphrodite (feat. Aobara Akari)” (track 2), a gutteral and raw outpouring of noise, woven together by a fragile walking melody and interspersed by a clean female Japanese vocal.
The remainder of the album is as disjointed and challenging as these opening tracks—pummelling violence gives way to quiet soundscapes, cut through with Japanese lyrics and unusual melodies.
The album closes with “The funeral, 2012“, a final soundscape littered with creaks and groans, ticks and tocks and the sound of children’s toys. It’s creepy AF!
Conclusion
This album is definitely an experience. Past (2023) delivers a relentless barrage of aggression, energy and technicality that will either captivate or challenge the most discerning of metalheads. But it’s more than that—it is atmospheric, it is chilling, it is haunting with a healthy serving of Japanese culture and local influences thrown in for good measure.
The jury is still out on this one for me. Your mileage may vary. I usually enjoy unusual music—this definitely feels like it’s on the more artistic end of the spectrum. Give it a listen, but certainly don’t file it under easy listening.
Review score: 50%
Disclosure
MDPR contacted me inviting me to preview Abort’s forthcoming album, thank you. I have no connections to either MDPR or Abort. I’m not being paid to review this, but I did get a free digital copy of the album to review which is pretty cool. Many thanks to Zach from MDPR, and to Abort for continuing to create interesting new music.