Published on Jun 27, 2002
Ahh… so
this is what Ministry might sound like if Al Jourgenson
decided to practice the Black Arts.
Fire Walk With Us, the second release from Italian
industrial/death metallers Aborym, is not your typical music for
this genre. Sure, you have the musicians who look like they were
just made up for a match hosted by the WWE, supposedly singing
praises to Satan and all that is unholy – I guess that’s the case,
since I couldn’t make out a single word Attila Csihar screamed
throughout this disc. But the overall feel goes for a more
technical bend than all-out mayhem, including what seem to be
synthesized drums. Honestly, I can’t imagine any human alive being
able to keep up the frantic beats which are heard throughout this
disc for this long.
Yet
Fire Walk With Us often sounds like unfinished business;
there are times when one really wishes they’d hear the band totally
cut loose, only to have layered keyboards continue to fill what
might otherwise be dead air. Add to the mix a formula which grows
stale pretty quick, and you have an album which is meant for only
the diehard fans of this genre.
Even there, it’s hard to exactly pinpoint who this disc is
targeted at, since Aborym is definitely carving out their own
unique niche here. While there are the necessary requirements to
qualify this as classic speed/death metal, the heavy reliance on
synthesizers gives this music a whole different feel. Even from the
first track, “Our Sentence,” the listener knows that this is not
your typical death metal.
If only Aborym were able to parlay this into something more
interesting. It takes Aborym time to build up to the meat of “Love
The Death As The Life” – and while I think I can understand why the
band took a minute to create a sonic sculpture leading to the
actual song, in the end it becomes a minute wasted. In a similar
vein, “Here Is No God S.T.A.” tries to be more like Ministry than
anyone else, but without a definite rhythm section (at least in the
beginning of the song), it almost sounds like you’re listening to a
demo version of this track. I kept waiting for the final version to
leap out at me, but it never did.
Even an idea that works – like the slow buildup and retreat of
“Theta Paranoia” – makes one wonder if Aborym wouldn’t have been
better served actually trying to write a full song rather than
creating mood pieces, no matter how demonic they might have
seemed.
And while
Fire Walk With Us is ambitious in its undertakings, Aborym
still hasn’t quite figured out how to keep their sound fresh
through the course of a whole album, meaning by the time the
listener gets to tracks like “Det Som En Gang Var,” they’ll be
yawning with familiarity. Not a good sign for a group who are
supposed to be trailblazers in this subset of metal.
Still, I have to admire certain qualities of Aborym – even if
getting excited about Csihar’s vocal displays and control may seem
miniscule to some. There is undoubtedly a place for a band like
this in an already over-crowded field, and there are occasional
glimmers of promise on
Fire Walk With Us. If only the flames burned as bright on
this disc as the promises.
2002 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of
Mercenary Musik / World War III Records, and is used for reference
purposes only.