BLOOD INCANTATION — Absolute Elsewhere (review)

BLOOD INCANTATION — Absolute Elsewhere album cover

Album · 2024 · Death Metal

5/5 · 2024-10-15
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The US death metal act Blood Incantation has already established themselves as a major act of their genre. It was apparent, I think, from at least as early as their debut album Starspawn (2016) but really asserted on Hidden History of the Human Race (2019). They played progressive death metal but without over reliance on the technical death metal sub-genre. Absolute Elsewhere (2024) is their third studio album and although they've left it so long between their primary records Blood Incantation has been far from idle and in the intervening years has taken the time to explore other avenues of music, most notably space ambient on the EP (which is actually album length and was until Absolute Elsewhere actually their longest release) Timewave Zero (2022). They then released the maxi-single Luminescent Bridge (2023) which saw them combining elements from both their progressive death metal and ambient work. Luminescent Bridge's two songs are included on the deluxe edition of Absolute Elsewhere as a bonus disc as is a second completely ambient release not currently available elsewhere calls All Gates Open.

Absolute Elsewhere is a very different beast to either of the previous Blood Incantation studio albums and if you haven't been paying attention to what they've been doing since Hidden History of the Human Race, it may come as a surprise but if you have been you will know that Blood Incantation isn't content to be a one trick pony. This album features just two songs (broken up into three tracks each and branded as Tablets by the band) which see them combining all different kinds of music into their sound. Expect lots of shifts between their cavernous death metal sound and lighter music, including synth driven stuff which also included a guest spot for Thorsten Quaeschning, the current band leader of Berlin School giants Tangerine Dream. As an album Absolute Elsewhere owes as much to Pink Floyd as it does Morbid Angel. Both the songs or suites, if you prefer, cross the twenty minute border.

It is simply one of those albums where there are so many intricacies present that coming back to it for more time after time again reveals more and more about it. I'm already on my twelfth listen as of putting this review together. While it may need saying that they might be now too far gone for the more purist of death metal fans, for whom these continual let-ups in the intensity may serve as unnecessary distraction, I don't feel that Blood Incantation has moved into the world better described as extreme progressive metal as inhabited by Opeth or Ihsahn: they leave no doubt over their death metal allegiances when they're really giving it welly. This is death metal, just enhanced into a cosmic experience, taking you through stargates to deliver it's message. I am floored by it.

For me, Blood Incantation just released in Absolute Elsewhere not only their best album yet, but also one of the most outright interesting death metal albums to be released for a long time. It is the album that sets the standard for the rest of the year that other bands are going to have to better if they are to dethrone it from being my top album of 2024.