Band:	Aborted / Christ Denied
Album:	Aborted / Christ Denied
Style:	Brutal death metal
Release date:	March 2000
Guest review by:	s7mon

Aborted
01. Eructations Of Carnal Artistry
02. Sea Of Cartilage
03. Symposium Of Semiology

Christ Denied
04. Better Impaled Than Crucified
05. Castration In The Name Of God
06. The Uncreation

This 2000 split consists of material of two bands that were right on the beginning of their careers. Both Aborted from Belgium and Christ Denied from Spain had recorded only their debut full-lengths. As time would later show, only one of them became an important part of the brutal death metal scene. Nevertheless, it still stands as an interesting part of Aborted's history and, what's more important, an entertaining piece of art.

First things first, let me start with the three compositions of the Belgian commando. In the previous year they proved that they did have a lot of potential in the sonic killing business. The only thing that I kind of disliked was the slight repetitiveness of the songs. But here, with only three tracks, it is hard to repeat this statement. Still the band had a lot of ideas and kept their songs interesting, mainly due to skillful shuffling of tempos and motives. It is really difficult to choose one of the three tracks, but the part that drew my attention was movie dialogue presented in the middle of "Sea of Cartilage". On The Purity of Perversion they also used cut-out scenes from movies which I don't know or don't remember, but they were either before or after a song. Now it is composed deftly into a song and I must say it is quite impressive. Overall, the three songs are really good and no wonder two of them later appeared on some albums ("Eructations of Carnal Artistry" on 2001's Engineering the Dead and "Sea of Cartilage" on 2003's Goremageddon: The Saw and the Carnage Done).

Another three tracks were delivered by Christ Denied. The Spanish never really made it, but the music present on this split is by no means weak. It's a bit different than Aborted as it is much more grind-oriented, especially the vocals which are either really deep guttural growls or typical pig squeals. They also sometimes make you realize that the band are not 100% serious in what they do (but then again, how many bands using pig squeals take themselves seriously?), for example the hilarious last 40 seconds of "Better Impaled Than Crucified" (but I guess the title speaks for itself). However, the whole 9 minutes and 24 seconds is really enjoyable. I liked the riffs in particular, they are actually memorable which is not so easy when you're a grind-death metal band.

Overall, the split delivers a high-octane killing spree of just under twenty minutes. It is obviously not enough for a true maniac, but satisfying the listeners is not the aim of splits. Their goal is to make you interested in a band, and while I already was into Aborted before, it made me want to find some other Christ Denied records. So concerning myself, the mission of this release was accomplished.