����� Supreme mechanical devilry! So we've picked up a couple of older Aborym albums that, for some odd reason, we never got in stock back when they first came out, despite the fact that I've been a fan of this Italian industrial black metal outfit for ages. Their stuff is some of the best within the nebulous realm of 'industrial black metal', as well as some of the weirdest. Now that some of these older Aborym releases have received recent vinyl reissues, I figured we'd go ahead and pick up some of their back-catalog titles in an effort to turn some of you on to the furious, futuristic, often bizarre heaviness that these maniacs has been blasting for the past twenty years.

����� On their 2010 album Psychogrotesque, Aborym delved inward for their inspiration, exploring visions of schizophrenia, violent psychosis and institutionalization over the course of these ten numerated tracks. Right from the start, this heads into a more offbeat and experimental direction compared to the crushing technoid black metal of their previous album. All of their signature traits (rigid, mechanized black metal, sweeping minor key synthesizer atmospherics, bursts of electronic glitchery and programmed rhythms) are here, but the songs themselves are more deranged and labyrinthine, their blasting violence getting caught in a web of convoluted arrangements and hallucinatory samples. Dance music elements come on strong early on, interjecting bursts of furious drum n' bass into the freezing symphonic black metal of "Psychogrotesque III", and there are eerie spoken word passages backed by grim industrial soundscapes, glacial drum loops and fragments of classical piano. There's lots of shape-shifting going on: slipping into mournful gothic metal where the vocals drop into a gloomy baritone croon; blasts of scorching rave-synth lead into stretches of skittering trip-hop-esque moodiness; jazzy saxophone like something out of an early 80's urban crime drama wails across the buzzsaw riffing; the singer's weird, reptilian croak is joined by operatic female vocals (courtesy of Karyn Crisis) that drift over sorrowful symphonic strings. Ferocious, jet-black hardcore techno kicks in on "Psychogrotesque VIII ", along with almost Eldritch-like vocals, and crushing kosmische interludes sweep across super-heavy blackened dirge. This evil, schizoid frenzy ends up culminating with a long final crawl through repetitious, crushing riffage and swells of apocalyptic ambience, stretches of bleak electronic noise and cinematic orchestral sounds eventually leading this towards a "hidden" track at the very end, where the band closes the album with a blast of distorted, despair-drenched industrial power.

����� Definitely a weirder, more acid-damaged and more eclectic album from Aborym, a band who's already prone to alienate black metal purists. And compared to the machinelike brutality of With No Human Intervention, this is a much less focused album, which in keeping with it's general themes is probably the point. Regardless, I dug the hell out of this more madcap descent into Aborym's peculiar strain of Italian industrial black metal madness, and it's worth checking out if you're into kindred spirits like Blacklodge, Dodheimsgard, and Mysticum.

����� Available on digipak CD and limited-edition double LP, in gatefold packaging with digital download.