I was born, raised and I still live in Apeldoorn, a village in the middle of The Netherlands. We are not common with "Carnaval" and I didn't even knew it took place when I walked into the centre of Eindhoven, the big city in the provice Noord-Brabant where Carnaval is a familiar festival which lasts for a few days. Young and old, everybody is dressed up in costumes to look like known characters from the past or from tv, or simply like a pirate or a cowboy. When I entered the Dynamo Club most of the folks seemed to be wearing what they always do though: merchandise of their favorite bands. Except a few that had Mexican hats on their heads!

Because I arrived way too late, Distorted was already playing. I first expected the Belgian death thrashers with the same name which seemed way more logical to me, but this Distorted was a completely different band: no thrash, but progressive (death) metal with elements from gothic/doom to melodeath combined with both male and female vocals. This fivepiece isn't even from Europe, but from Israel. I was wondering what they had in common with Aborted, and why they were playing on their releaseparty and my research made that clear: Matan Shmuely, Distorted's drummer, once operated as live drummer for Aborted in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2006. So now Distorted had their chance to gain some new fans and although most of the attented metalheads came for some grinding death, the Israelis didn't seem to care and played (for as far as I've seen the show) a fantastic gig with a great clear sound. Their multi-influenced metal wasn't chaotic at any moment and the variation between the deep male growls of Raffy Mor and the female voice of Miri Milman sounded very good. Those who are visiting the Metal Female Voices Fest V in Belgium this year should defenitly check them out!

The second supporting act of tonight was Prostitute Disfigurement. As I check back in the Metalrage history of live views from this band I read nothing than positive feedback. My only experience with Prostitute Disfigurement was last year when they did a free gig in a small bar in Tilburg, when I was completely taken by surprise cause of the brutallity. This time it didn't went any different: brutal death metal with absurd deep grunts raped my ears while the overall noise was very tight: Now that is quality! In advance of Prostitute's show I was quite afraid of this, not because of their skills but because the Dynamo Club has a bad name concerning their sound. These boys from Eindhoven once again created a party of which they can accuse themselves.

Now it was time for Aborted, who were presenting their new record to the Dutch crowd: Slaughter & Apparatus: A Methodical Overture. I haven't seen Aborted anytime before but I'm adopting this style of death metal more and more so I knew I had to be here. And I was so bloody right! Even tighter than Prostitute, how was it possible? They created an atmosphere with extreme heavy metal, shredding solos and a sampled sound that you can hear better on tracks from Aborted's side-project In-Quest, but it's clearly in Aborted too. I also liked the fact that Sebastien Tuvi, who plays guitar and also does backing vocals, grunts deeper and ‘louder' than frontman Sven De Caluwe who also was in good condition. And then there was this drummer! Where on the record Psycroptic's David Haley stands in for the Aborted's drummer vacancy, it was now Arien van Weesenbeek who sat behind the kit during the cd-releaseparty shows. This guy is such an amazing artist.. so ultra-fast and technical too. He didn't had much time to learn and practice Aborted's songs, but he played them all spotless. Simply amazing. I enjoyed this evening so much that it fits in my list of best ever death metal concerts together with Nile and Hate Eternal.