Aborted received a lot of attention with their critically acclaimed previous album Gormageddon - The Saw and the Carnage Done, an album that showed a lot of progression from their debut Engineering the Dead. Now the band is ready with their third full-length The Archaic Abattoir and once again the band shows ingenuity and evolvement.

The songs still sound like Aborted but the band have lowered the pace and added a few grooves here and there and it really suits the music very well. Of course there are still the mandatory blastbeat outbursts but they are just not as common as they used to be but when they appear they actually sound more intense than ever before. Somehow it all sound far more balanced and mature compared to the past material. Songs like "Dead Wreckoning", the new and re-recorded version of "Gestated Rabidity" and "Voracious Haemoglobinic Syndrome" shows huge improvement on the solo side too. Material like "Blood Fixing the Bled" and "Threading on Vermillion Deception" both have what in my ears sound like Illdisposed inspired grooves and there is actually also a guest appearance from Illdisposed vocalist Bo Summer on the song "The Inertia". Overall the material sound far catchier than anything heard from the band before.

Aborted decided to enlist Tue Madsen as producer this time instead of Jakob Hansen who have been in charge on the last two releases and the outcome is actually even better than before. The result is a sound that is thicker and with a bit more punch and depth than on the past material and it really suits the music. The more I listen to the album the better it becomes. Of course there's always favourites on an album and I guess The Archaic Abattoir is no different either but I actually think all material on the album is worthwhile without any exceptions. I liked both Gormageddon - The Saw and the Carnage Done and The Haematobic EP quite a bit but there's no doubt that The Archaic Abattoir is the strongest and most diverse release to date from the Belgian death metallers.