A star was born when Denver’s Blood Incantation launched itself into prominence on its exciting 2016 debut Starspawn. The album’s rugged, sometimes cavernous old school death drew inspiration from legacy acts such as Morbid Angel, strengthened by their ability to contort and leverage their brutish qualities with a heavy lashing of psychedelic and progressive elements within spacey, sci-fi-themed realms. Blood Incantation possessed the talent, musicianship, and compositional prowess to match the growing hype. Momentum continued on 2019’s equally ambitious and experimental Hidden History of the Human Race. Part of the Blood Incantation appeal has been their magically creative pairing of forward-thinking ideas, psych-prog experimentations, and thickly oppressive, atmospheric death metal.
When 2022’s Timewave Zero came rolling through as a bold detour embracing their ambient soundscapes and minimalist synthwave experiments, offloading vocals, and suppressing their metallic instincts, I was left bewildered. Admittedly the jarring nature of the experiment played a part in my disappointment. The songs were crafted with care yet failed to grip or sustain interest, resulting in an album that placed question marks over the band’s future endeavors. Absolute Elsewhere alleviates concerns that Blood Incantation was going to navigate its way down a different wormhole, continuing to lead the listener down unexpected channels. Essentially, this latest experiment finds Blood Incantation dividing the runtime into two separate, though closely interconnected suites, comprising three episodes each, the first being “The Stargate” trio, followed by “The Message.”
Absolute Elsewhere marks a bold, adventurous journey from the Denver heavyweights. The death metal core returns, sharing space with an increasingly heavy dose of retro progressive rock, spacey electronica, and ambient soundscapes. Prominent influences include German stalwarts Tangerine Dream (member Thorsten Quaesching features on “The Stargate (Tablet II)”), to the legendary Pink Floyd. Sometimes the disparate elements interlock with remarkable fluidity, other times they feel as if an extra jiggle may be required to loosen slight clunkiness. Absolute Elsewhere is a wild ride that will leave your noodle in a spin, encapsulating Blood Incantation’s astral inspirations and fascination with the mysteries of the universe, in cool, atmospheric ways. Electronic bleeps, shimmering synths, rich instrumental passages, and psychedelic wig-outs smack headlong into walls of dense, crushing death. Retro and futuristic, mellow and crushing, melodic and atmospheric, ambient and heavy, progressive and technical, Absolute Elsewhere covers a vast territory, creating an intriguing experience that takes a good while to unpack and appreciate. Best absorbed as one complete package and designed in halves, the album can also be dissected by its individual ‘tablets.’
Opener “Stargate (Tablet I)” lays the cards on the table. The rollicking, warped journey abruptly shifts from its galloping, hard-hitting opening to extended psych-prog instrumental jamming and back again. The transitions feel jarring, but the writing and musicianship are top-notch. “The Stargate (Tablet III)” features dreamy, acoustic-backed transitions deftly integrated into the predominant death metal presence, as lurching death-doom meets blasty, urgent power plays. While intriguing aspects of their psych-prog odyssey remain, it is pleasing to hear Blood Incantation get down and dirty with their death metal roots again. Healthy doses of death keep the album grounded in guttural, aggressive, riff-heavy realms, despite the experimental passages and progressive prominence. “The Message” is arguably the stronger suite, but it isn’t night and day. Both are consistently engaging and feature their share of highlights. Closer “The Message (Tablet III)” for instance is a whopping eleven-minute monster, drawing the album to an emotive, unpredictable, rollercoaster conclusion.
Blood Incantation’s Absolute Elsewhere is a compelling, though not flawless, endeavor. Grounded in ambient soundscapes and samples, “The Stargate (Tablet II)” overstays its dreamy welcome and stalls momentum, to be redeemed only by its riffy, psych-marbled climax. Later on, the overt Floydisms of “The Message (Tablet II)” form an infectious slab of mesmerizing prog rock, yet the cleaner passages and vocals border on plagiarism. Meanwhile, the production is crisp and organic but would benefit from a warmer, more dynamic master. Quibbles aside, Absolute Elsewhere offers a unique, boundary-busting, cosmic excursion into strange, trippy realms, that sounds atypical to the average progressive death metal album. A true headphones album to get lost in, the record feels like a death metal love letter to prog nerds. Despite the odd lull in its energy or excess in its composition, it’s a bold and triumphant album, with gripping writing and performances. Absolute Elsewhere is a bright, exciting return to form.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s CBR MP3
Label: Century Media Records
Websites: facebook.com/astralnecrosis | bloodincantation.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: October 4th, 2024
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