| Aborym | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Italy, Norway |
| Genres | Black metal, industrial metal |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Labels | Season of Mist |
| Associated acts | Alien Vampires, Blood Tsunami, Burial Chamber Trio, Dissection, Emperor, Keep of Kalessin, Mayhem, Mysticum, Plasma Pool, Scum, Sunn O))), Thorns, Tormentor, Unanimated, Void of Silence, Watain |
| Website | http://www.myspace.com/aborym666 |
| Members | |
| Bård G. Eithun (Faust) Paolo Pieri (Hell:I0:Kabbalus) Malfeitor Fabban |
|
| Past members | |
| Alex Noia Attila Csihar D. Belvedere Yorga SM Nysrok Infernalien Sathanas Preben Mulvik (Prime Evil) Davide Totaro (Set Teitan) |
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Aborym is an Italian/Norwegian industrial black metal band, initially hailing from Taranto, Apulia, in Italy. The band has described their music as "alien-black-hard/industrial",[1] whilst Allmusic described them as playing "a truly original brand of futuristic black metal [with] jagged samples, electronic drums, and industrial overtones, mak[ing] Aborym's peculiar sound very hard to pin down or define".[2] Since 2006's Generator, the band has had a real drummer in the form of Bård G. Eithun. The name derives from Haborym Sadek Aym, overseer of the twenty-six legions of Hell in a seventeenth-century grimoire.[3]
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Aborym were originally formed in Taranto, Apulia, in 1993 by Malfeitor Fabban, then bassist in Funeral Oration and keyboardist for MEMORY Lab.[4] The band started out as a covers band, playing the likes of Sepultura, Rotting Christ and Sodom, amongst others. Along with Alex Noia (guitars) and Mental Siege (drums), Fabban recorded the first Aborym demo, the five-track Worshipping Damned Souls, in 1993. The band split up shortly afterwards, with Fabban pursuing his other project, Funeral Oration. Fabban however reformed the band in 1997 in Rome, with a new line-up containing Yorga SM on vocals and David Totaro on guitars, who recorded Aborym's second demo (Antichristian Nuclear Sabbath) that same year. In 1999, the band struck a deal with the Italian Scarlet Records to release their first full-length album, Kali Yuga Bizarre. The album featured guest vocals from Attila Csihar, well known in the black metal scene for his work with Mayhem, Tormentor and Plasma Pool, who was to join the band full-time following the departure of Yorga SM. Around the same time, the band added a second guitarist, Nysrok Infernalien Sathanas, of the band Satanikk Terrorists. The album was well-received, with the caveat that was to become their trademark: one has to be open-minded when listening to it.[5]
In 2001 Aborym released their second album, Fire Walk with Us!, with Csihar fulfilling vocal duties and the band including a cover of Norwegian group Burzum's "Det Som En Gang Var". The album was extremely well received; Terrorizer awarded it album of the month with a maximum score of 10/10, commenting, "Most black-heads will hate it, others will be curiously offended by it, and a fearless few will call it their own and use it as their very lifeblood. You can almost see the majority snicker at Aborym's psychedelic time-travel-meets-corpse-paint image, but these visuals serve to underline specifically where band and record belong: the outer reaches of the cosmos."[6] The album also made Terrorizer's Albums of the Year for 2001, at position 39.[7] Eduardo Rivadavia of Allmusic highlighted the potentially divisive nature of the record, stating: "Is it any good? Well, it really comes down to how the listener positions himself along the digital divide. Those who prefer their metal stripped down and straightforward will likely find Aborym too industrial and chaotic. Yet for fans of truly unique new directions in metal, Fire Walk With Us is a full-course meal."[8]
2003 saw Aborym release With No Human Intervention through Code666 in Europe and Mercenary Musik in the United States. The album continued to expand on the band's experimentation with electronica, with Aborym citing influences from drum and bass, jungle, techno, classical, EBM and industrial.[3] The album featured guest appearances contributions from Bard Eithun, Roger Rasmussen, Matt Jarman (of Void), Mick Kenney and Richard Szabo (of Timewave Zero). The album again achieved Album of the Month in Terrorizer, with Stuart Banks remarking, "With No Human Intervention shows a band pulling out all the stops to push the extreme and avant garde to new depths and quite frankly, making it look easy."[9] Opinion again was mixed however, with John Serba of Allmusic commenting, "Bottom line, Aborym is easier to enjoy in theory more than in practice, although tackling the group's wildly disturbing sonic art isn't without its rewards."[1] In a 2009 retrospective on the black metal genre, Ciaran Tracey reflected:
| “ | The fact remains, though, that most bands wishing to transcend the archetype of bee-in-a-biscuit-tin guitars haven't actually been that radical. Take for example Aborym's 'Fire Walk With Us!' (2001) and 'With No Human Intervention' (2003), which were both met with rapturous reception on account of their cold processed extremity. Although resplendent in a sort of cyber-black metal, UV glowing, post-apocalyptic chic borrowed extensively from contemporary goth club culture (including the drugs), the music was more or less decent BM made a bit more digital by overtly computerised drumming and a liberal smattering of samples.[10] | ” |
Following the album's release, Aborym played at the prestigious Inferno Festival in 2004,[11] with Eithun guesting on drums for the track "Alienation of a Blackened Heart".[3]
In 2006, Aborym signed with a bigger label in the form of Season of Mist to release their fourth record, Generator. The band underwent further line-up changes, with Csihar leaving after seven years to return to Mayhem, and Totaro moving to Sweden to join the reformed Dissection, and later Watain. Csihar was replaced by Preben "Prime Evil" Mulvik, previously of Mysticum and Amok, and for the first time the band employed a human drummer in the form of Bard G. Eithun, ex-drummer with Emperor and then of Blood Tsunami. Chad Bowar of About.com praised the album's atmospheric elements and the vocals of Mulvik, noting also that Csihar returns to appear on one track ("Man Bites God").[12] He also commented that whilst the synths had a tendency to make the album sound melodramatic and sterile, the addition of a live drummer helps to alleviate this.[12] In July 2007, Nysrok Infernalien Sathanas, Aborym's long-term guitarist, left the band, stating that his "approach to our way of working, living and thinking" was out of sync with the rest of the band.[3] Mulvik also departed to band to concentrate on other priorities in his life.[4]
In 2010 Aborym became a trio: Fabban, Eithun and new guitarist Paolo Pieri (stage name Hell:IO:Kabbalus). Recording the fifth album commenced on February 20 at Fear No One studios in Montefiascone, Italy, under the supervision of sound engineer Emiliano Natali. The band announced that the album would consist of a single track, which they described as "a harsh sonic monolith of sickness and depravity".[4] The album featured sound consulting by Marc Urselli Shrarer at Eastside Sound Studios, New York. As usual, the album was announced to be featuring a number of guest appearances, in this case Narchost (of Fabban's other band, Malfeitor), and Richard Szabo (of Timewave Zero), amongst others yet to be revealed. In August 2010, Aborym announced that the title of the fifth album was to be Psychgrotesque and was to be released on November 8 in Europe (November 23 in the USA). The band described the album as:
| “ | a realistic story about the horrific human aridity and its fragile impotence. A social metaphor, uncomfortable but very current, treated cynically by bassist-singer Fabban through a story set in a mental hospital, which suggests that he used his pen with an absolute commitment and the determination to keep off ABORYM from the banality and clichés both ideological/aptitudinal and musical that saturate the extreme metal scene.[13] | ” |