ABORTED To Commemorate Debut Album's 20th Anniversary With Retrospective Release

Prior to ABORTED's performance in Brooklyn, New York on April 15, vocalist Sven de Caluwé spoke with Heavy New York. The full conversation can be seen below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the group's latest album, "TerrorVision":

Sven: "I think [it] is the record we actually put the most time into, because this is the only [ABORTED] record we did full pre-production of. We also had way too much songs. There's a bunch of songs that never made it on the record. We recorded about 65, 70 minutes of music, and then the label asked us to trim it down because they thought it was too long, which was hard for us because loved all the songs. But after listening to the whole master a couple of times, we were, like, 'It does get intense,' so we decided to scrap three tracks. We're, like, 'You know what? We'll use them for something else later. Let's try to make the most coherent album, and then the most coherent thing out of those other tracks.' We actually recorded the entire album at home ourselves before going in the studio, so we were very well-prepared for once."

On whether the band has decided how to use the leftover material:

Sven: "Since it's [the] anniversary this year — 20 years since our first album — we wanted to do something special, so we're actually going to use, I think, one of the three tracks that we really, really like on that release. We're writing another bunch of new songs that we think are pretty cool, and then we'll re-record a bunch of songs from the first two albums to do a sort of anniversary kind of release to celebrate the 20 years, and to also give the fans something new."

On the band's writing process:

Sven: "There's never really a template. I think what we usually do before we start writing, we're, like, 'All right. We did this. What could be better, and what do we want to do different? Where do we see it going? What kind of direction do we want to go with the new shit?'... We discuss that kind of shit, and then we just start writing. Usually, what comes out comes out, and when something doesn't fit what e have in mind, we just toss it aside. There's no fit mold... It's literally what feels natural."

On the group's goals for their new material:

Sven: "With everybody living all over the world, we don't really get to jam as a band. Everybody's got their producing tools and demo tools, but we don't get to jam the songs before we record them. This is an additional step we want to take now – when we finish writing, lock ourselves up for a week, jam out these songs and work out any kinks. We want to get songs that have much more impact live. It's not a problem to play all the songs, but there's just certain songs that are 'album songs' and songs that are 'live songs.' Now, we want to make sure we have a whole record which is both."

On the Belgian metal scene:

Sven: "There is a scene in Belgium – a great scene, but there's not that many death metal bands anymore. There's a lot of things going on around AMENRA; there's OATHBREAKER, OFF THE CROSS, WIEGEDOOD. Those are a lot of the same people, or the same type of crowd. That thing is exploding. Back in the day, we had the whole H8000 scene, which is the beginning of what for me at least was actual metalcore. Metalcore, for me, is not singy choruses and shit. Back in the day, it was a mix of fuckin' hardcore and metal... For me, that's what I know as metalcore. It's a very different version of the American metalcore style. We used to have a huge scene of that. Then death metal did kind of good, and now the whole AMENRA thing is doing great. I think for death metal, there's still a really good scene. There's not that many bands, though. There's a lot of fans, but not necessarily that many local bands that I know of that are doing a lot."

ABORTED's tenth studio album, "TerrorVision", was released in September via Century Media Records. The group's "Hell Over North America" tour with CRYPTOPSY wraps up tonight (April 20) in Indianapolis, Indiana.