Belgian death metal mainstays Aborted are touring North America in a tour bluntly named Hell Over North America, delivering brutal death metal to the masses of this great continent. They are doing so with the help of Cryptopsy, Hideous Divinity and for a large part of the tour with Benighted who are not on the bill for the last leg, and were not present in Brooklyn.
While the show was started by local New York brutal/technical death metal band Torturous Inception, the rest of the show belonged to the guests. They were followed by Italian technical death metallers from Rome – Hideous Divinity.
Italian death metal band Hideous Divinity just signed with new label Century Media and headed out on their first North American tour supporting Belgian death metal band Aborted on a tour named Hell Over North America.
Though the band might seem relatively new to the general audience here, they already have released three studio albums, with the most recent one being Adveniens, released back in 2017 through Unique Leader Records. Other two albums were released shortly before that – Obeisance Rising in 2012 and Cobra Verde in 2014.
This Monday night they had a chance to introduce themselves to the New York public. Hideous Divinity came on stage and did a six song set, that felt like a Hurricane. Vocalist Enrico H Di Lorenzo was vicious in delivering his vocals, and a few time in between songs exclaiming Mamma Mia!, which seems to be his go to catch phrase. On the drums Giulio Gealti was with his headphones on and was in beast mode, joined on stage by guitarists Giovanni Tomassucci and Enrico Schettino, with bass player Stefano Franceschini who is on double duty also performing for Aborted.
All songs in the set came from the newest album – Ages Die to start off and Feeding Off The Blind to end it, with When Flesh Unfolds, Passages, Angel Of Revolution and Messianica in between. All songs were a fine example of the bands technical death metal style, and were received by fans with approval.
After the show I had a great time of having a quick chat with band vocalist Enrico H Di Lorenzo, who did not hide his excitement about it: “We are having a time of our life!” – he exclaimed, “ last summer we toured Canada, but this is our first time in America.” he added.
Biggest difference between North America and Europe he sees in fans involvement in the shows: “In the way fans enjoy the show. In Europe you have super devoted fans, but during the show they look at you, listen and enjoy the show, and it’s wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But here people live in the moment, they head bang, they smash their bones, and they forced me to jump of the stage to mosh me down. They have so much fun. I think when I’ll come back to Italy I will discover that some of my bones are broken (laughter). But it was worth it!!!”
Enrico promised that band will come back to the US within this year, because Visa to the country was super costly and must be used. After that he went back to his merch desk, where up front there was a little box placed for the tips (probably to recover Visa costs), and was marked with two words – Mamma Mia!
Next came Canada’s Cryptopsy, hailing from Montreal and have been around for thirty years. The band is another technical death metal staple having released seven studio albums and in the last few years two EP’s named The Book Of Suffering Part I and Part II. It was easy to see that the band had a strong following here in New York. If you were not in moshing mood it was wise to move aside, because the place was going mad with vocalist Matt McGachy’s performance somewhat reminiscent to Cannibal Corpse frontman George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher’s style. Their songs were rolling down on you like an avalanche, with relentless force – technical death metal at its finest.
The party of the night was Belgian death metal band Aborted from Beveren. The band just released their newest album called TerrorVision at the end of last year, marking it as the bands tenth studio album. Though the majority of material on the set came from previous works, quite frankly, no one cared what they play. The set was pure brutal death metal madness, Aborted came to Brooklyn to tear the place down.
Sven de Caluwé or Svencho as we know him, who is the bands vocalist and only current founding member, was out of control. He was all over the stage, which was decorated with two coffin like boxes that had mutilated corpses inside them (artificial of course!). Sven put all of his heart in to the show. Bassist Stefano Franceschini who is on double duty during the tour as he is also a member of Hideous Divinity was flawless, despite the fact that he had to have been tired.
From TerrorVision Aborted performed only four songs – the title track, Deep Red, Exquisite Covinous Drama and A Whore D’oeuvre Macabre. The tour is about to be finished, however Aborted will stay busy, and are scheduled to participate in a slew of European Tours.
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Andris Jansons
