Band:	Aborym
Album:	With No Human Intervention
Style:	Industrial black metal
Release date:	January 08, 2003
A review by:	Sephiroth

01. Antichristian Codec (Intro)
02. With No Human Intervention
03. U.V. Impaler
04. Humechanics-Virus
05. Does Not Compute
06. Faustian Spirit Of The Earth
07. Digital Goat Masque
08. The Triumph
09. Black Hole Spell
10. Me(n)tal Striken Terror Action 2
11. Out Of Shell
12. Chernobyl Generation
13. The Alienation Of A Blackened Heart
14. Automatik Rave'olution Satan
+ With No Human Intervention [video]

Well, that's a tough one. For the first time I really have no idea of how and what to tell you of this album. Not because I have no idea on it, but because many could find it a complete masterpiece, but most will find it completely unacceptable.
Some words about Aborym: they're now on their third full-length, coming from a long career, since 1992 when Malfiteor Fabban, the bass player and mastermind of the band, founded it. The previous two albums (Kali Yuga Bizarre in 1999 and Fire Walk With Us! in 2001) showed a black metal band deeply influenced by electronic and industrial sonorities, even if still linked to the old BM tradition (a good cover of Burzum's "Det Some En Gang Var" is performed on the second album).
The fame of this band was, and sometimes still is, mainly linked to the presence in the line up of the legendary "voice of death", the singer which gave his voice to the black metal album of all black metal albums: The Misteriis Dom Sathanas. I'm talking of Attila Csihar, the most gifted and expressive of the BM vocalists, in my opinion.
That's the hard point: I mean, is it possible to define it Black Metal, or even Necro Post Black Metal (this undefined creature), as the label's biography does?

The first listening of this album will indeed give you a feeling of strong surprise and maybe of doubt: how to consider it? A masterpiece of superb experimentation or a garbage full of noise and electric sounds?
From the beginning you'll notice the most evident change: the aesthetic impact you'll have with the product has nothing to do with BM as we traditionally conceive it. We can guess the type of music starting from the cover, which represents an industrial facility on a white background, and from the titles of the songs: if "The Alienation Of A Blackened Heart" or "Faustian Spirit Of The Earth" are more "traditional" titles, some others such as "Automatik Rave'olution Satan", "Digital Goat Masque" or the title track "With No Human Intervention" shows us the meaning of coldness and mechanic sterility that the Italian band wants to transmit. The way they present themselves is also pretty original and innovative: the classical Black&White facepainting has been replaced with masks painted with those colours that glow under the UV lights, in order to create startling effects. A little example which shows how this band is interested in linking music with aesthetic impact.

Once you put the CD inside your Hi-Fi and you begin to listen to the first track, you can think to be in the presence of a fast and raw BM album, played with skill and with the heavy and oppressive presence of a hell-fire blasting drum machine and some electronic samples, where the voice of Cshiar makes its usual outstanding and evil performance. Then, you'll be brought to think that in some parts it seems more like a Death Metal band which often goes on the border with Grind, because of the monolithic guitars rhythmics (listen to around 2:00 of "Faustian Spirit Of The Earth") and some fast razorblade like riffs. Then, when you listen to the "Does not Compute" track (composed for Aborym by Matt Yerman from Void/OCD) you'll begin to be a bit lost: the electronic beep which ended the previous song starts the beginning of an electronic track in which this beeping sound is accompanied by other new industrial samples, all to create a slightly beating "symphony" of cold machinery sounds. Ok, its a bizarre experiment, you'll probably say. If you go on listening (and that's only if you're able to?the album is pretty long and really hard to digest at the first listening) you'll get a better idea of the strange BM style of Aborym, and maybe begin to appreciate the inhuman effect of the drum machine and the good variations of Csihar's singing.

Then, the choc. "Chernobyl Generation" is the track that you'd never expect to hear on a BM album, the track which probably gives you the complete comprehension of this album. Only industrial hardcore beats, electronic samples?rave music. I personally feel really lost, mainly in the prospective of making this review. I frankly feel myself not able to evaluate the musical value of a track like this, a track which has simply nothing of "metal" and not because there are not the guitars, but because it is included in another musical genre. What I can say is that "Cernobyl Generation" is what will make the difference in this album: if some BM fans might find some of the other tracks acceptable, this one will be seen as a blasphemy, while if some will appreciate this new style of BM, this track will enlighten them to understand its mood and its spirit better: a fusion between trance-like music and Black Metal.

The album is well built: the length (64:57) is the main problem if listened to altogether, but the single songs are really well structured, not only speed and pounding drum machine (very well programmed) but also slow electronic parts accompanied by the incredible voice of Attila Csihar, really an artist in his genre.
The other surprise is that for this album Aborym have had the contributes of a lot of artists from other groups, between which we can highlight Nattefrost, from Carpathian Forest, that made some guest vocals and Faust, ex drummer from Emperor and Thorns, currently in jail for the murder of a homosexual in 1994, who wrote some lyrics and who made a guest appearance with some spoken words by phone from the jail (!!). What surprised me (positively) was that these two guests are members, or ex members, of really "classical" BM acts: the BM movement is changing, none can deny it - the closed mindedness, trademark of BM is dead and the artists are searching new ways.
Well, in this optic, I have to say that Aborym are really at the avantgarde, playing something new without fear to be hated for that.

Sure, if you hate any kind of electronic sounds, forget this album at once, but if you are interested in listening to a really innovative mixture of genres (o maybe a new genre in itself) think about it.