Shirt Stains: Edgeborym
You’re Aborym-ing me.
It’s not often that an entire Shirt Stains column is dedicated to a band I’ve never heard of, but here we are. Not that I have some sort of encyclopedic knowledge of all that is metal, but it is rare for me to come across a band that has been around for as long as Aborym without ever hearing about them. The Italian industrial black metal band (or as they describe themselves: “alien-black-hard/industrial exclusively” has been kicking around in one form or another since the early 90s. Among Aborym’s ranks are Set Teitan from Dissection/Watain, Davide Tiso from Ephel Duath, and guest vocals from Attila Csihar. If a bunch of well-known metal musicians make black metal industrial music, does anyone hear it?
This week’s edition of Shirt Stains comes at the suggestion of our fearless leader Joe who, as of this writing, is either enjoying fine rum and cigars on a Cuban beach or is getting his butt thoroughly searched by the TSA. Maybe both! Anything goes down in Cuba! Technically speaking, though, the first shirt was suggested by Joe. Using my deductive reasoning, I assumed that there would be more lol-worthy Aborym shirts. I’m happy (is happy really the word I want to use?) to report that I was correct. Yay? Sure, let’s go with “yay”.
Plenty of people want white band shirts. Well, here you go? Happy? No. No you are not. If you say you’re a happy consumer, like the shirt is implying, then you’re lying. How does it feel, you lying liar? I’ll bet it feels as bad as we feel looking at this shirt. Logos on longsleeves need to go away. Try-hard sayings on shirts need to be forced onto a rocket and shot into the sun. ADRUGS UNITE US/ADRUGS DIVIDE US. That sounds like it’s straight out of the yearbook message written by a former high school friend that never left town and now posts videos from InfoWars and doomsday preppers. Don’t like the sleeves? You’re in luck because you can also get this wonderful piece of merch sans sleeves. Now the whole world can see your track marks when you aimlessly wander around the bus station at 2 in the morning.
Is this shirt pro-drugs? Anti-drugs? Pro-ripping off Nine Inch Nails shirts? Just change the nails to syringes! No one will notice! Is Nothing.Zero a song? An album? They would have been better off mentioning From Zero. At least that guy had fun hair.
Remember that previously stated desire to have non-black band shirts? Now we have a yellow Aborym shirt that makes you look like a burn-out version of Charlie Brown. In this world, Charlie got hooked on smack to deal with the pain of having Lucy pull the football away one too many times. Linus sold his blanket for an eight ball, Peppermint Patty is all pilled-up and Pigpen is turning tricks to feed his acid habit.
The front of the shirt has a lovely mirrored smudge of a cityscape and some flipped letters. That sentence I just wrote probably took more thought to construct than this design. It looks like the ink was still wet when the shirt was printed and just melted across the chest like a Popsicle dropping out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth on a hot summer day. The back has a demotivational poster in the form of “THIS WORLD WANTS TO FUCK YOU!” Heck, that doesn’t sound too bad. Everyone wants to feel loved, right? Well, maybe not those little stick figures made out of screws. Genital-less metal freaks. They’d rust over in minutes if the world tried to fuck them. The little blood drippings show the world that Aborym means business. Or that they just had some toast and jam for breakfast and it was a bit messy.
What the what? There’s more to unpack here than moving into a new house. Sure, the inverted crucifix is standard. Can’t show you’re Edge Masters Of The Universe without a little blasphemy. The blood trickle is already standard among Aborym shirts. Why a trickle? Are they blood-shy? That’s kind of like being “pee-shy” but with blood. It’s okay, Aborym. We’re all friends here. We all have blood or blood-like fluids. No need to be afraid.
Really, though, the focus should be on…well, whatever else is going on here. Is that a human fetus with the opacity turned down? An alien fetus? Why is it there? And where are those hands coming from? Why are they grabbing the arms of the cross like they were a rockin’ pair of boobs? Just look at how the fingers are positioned. They’re clearly going for “firm, yet gentle” cuppage. Aborym want you to know that they’re considerate lovers. Considerate, weird, blasphemous, alien-obsessed, lovers. Um…make sure to use protection, guys.
Not really much to say about this one other than “Nice chicken feet, Aborym.”
I wonder if Dave Mustaine knows that Vic Rattlehead is moonlighting on lesser bands’ shirts. No blond wig and banana tie could disguise one of the most well-known metal mascots in the world. For shame, Aborym. For shame.
