Blood Incantation: Absolute Elsewhere

I’ve been following Blood Incantation since 2016’s Starspawn album, when the bands cosmic themed, cavernous, Old-School-Death-metal stylings turned my head due to the calibre of musicianship and their veiled progressive approach. Since then the band have gone on to solidify themselves as a true force in cerebral death metal with 2019’s Hidden History of the Human Race. In 2022 the band then went on to polarise their building fanbase with the album Timewave Zero, an album made up entirely of ambient/synth work, highly influenced by Tangerine Dream and other forms of synth heavy ‘Kosmiche Musik’. 2023’s Luminescent Bridge EP saw a merging of the Death Metal and Synth work, arguably foreshadowing what was to come on 2024’s Absolute Elsewhere, yet no one could have quite anticipated what the band have delivered with this release.

Absolute Elsewhere is Blood Incantation’s latest album, their 4th LP, and the culmination of their career to date. For a fan of Death metal and Prog Rock, this album is a true gem. The album consists of 2 ‘side-long’ (~20 minute) epics'- The Stargate and The Message. Lead singer and guitarist Paul Riedl notes that "Absolute Elsewhere is our most potent audial extract/musical trip yet; like the soundtrack to a Herzog-style sci-fi epic about the history of/battle for human consciousness itself, via a '70s prog album played by a ’90s death metal band from the future.� Read that quote back a few times to wrap your head around what the band were seeking to deliver. Clearly, the band set out to merge prog rock and classic-era death metal, and to my ears they have flushed it out of the park.

Death metal and progressive rock elements have long been merged -Death, Cynic and Atheist were trail-blazers of this style - however, I’m struggling to remember where a band put such ‘pure’ prog rock elements into a Death metal album. This isn’t just a death metal band playing around with time signatures and compositional form, or a band playing an album of death metal tracks mixed with prog rock or Synth interludes. Both Epic tracks are cohesive compositions that fuse prog rock and classic-era death metal in a way that I find totally satisfying and convincing.

The album was recorded in 2023 at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin and was produced by the now-revered Arthur Rizk. The rumoured 9,000 worth of synth equipment to record the album didn’t go to waste. This band have made a masterpiece to my ears & eyes - the album artwork is worthy of a mention for the way it manages to reflect the mix of Cosmic Death metal and 70’s prog in its concept and delivery. Side 1’s ‘The Stargate’ merges Blood Incantations 90’s inspired death metal sound and Kosmic Synth approach as well as you’d ever imagine to be possible. Like all good prog epics, it's broken into 3 sections, dubbed by the band to be Tablets. Despite the three parts, It’s a cohesive trip that takes you to the darkest caverns of Immolation or Morbid Angel inspired death metal, and also to the spacey, mediative horizons of Tangerine Dream, speaking of which, TD’s current bandleader Thorsten Quaeschning contributes highly memorable synth lines to Tablet II. That synth section and the prior build-up is a clear highlight but It’s hard to single out a favourite section in such a high calibre track. Never the less the ending passages in this track are particularly great, with the ‘Open the Stargate’ vocals and heavy riffing being up there alongside the best moment on any Blood Incantation track to date. This song is absolutely fantastic and if you haven’t yet seen the short film that accompanies the release, you’re in for a trip/treat!

Side 2’s ‘The Message’ sees the band dial up the Prog rock influences to new levels �" from the Rush inspired intro of Tablet I, to the ‘full prog’ of Tablet II, which starts with a slinky Synth/Bass groove before opening up to an overt nod to Pompei era Pink Floyd. The guitar tones and vocals all scream David Gilmour. Tablet III rounds out the track and release in epic style, very much still 90’s-death-metal-into-Prog, but this time mixing classic era Chuck Schuldiner riffing with spiritual, percussion heavy mellow section which has an almost Jon Anderson/Tales from Topographic Oceans vibe about it. This track is truly epic and by the time the album concludes in a mediative wash of synth tones it's clear to me we’re talking about the Album of the year.

I can't help but ponder whether it was all part of the plan for this band to release pure 90’s inspired progressive death album (Hidden History of the Human Race), followed by Synth/Prog album (Timewave Zero) and then merge the two styles with the follow up (Absolute Elsewhere), or whether the band are just entering the studio and writing and recording whatever they’re inspired to write at the time. Whatever the case, I’m all in on whatever they come up with next. Believe the Hype!

Tracklist
1. The Stargate"
I. "The Stargate [Tablet I]"
II. "The Stargate [Tablet II]"
III. "The Stargate [Tablet III]"
2. "The Message"
I. "The Message [Tablet I]"
II. "The Message [Tablet II]"
III. "The Message [Tablet III]"

Added: November 15th 2024
Reviewer: Chris Reid
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 542
Language: english

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