BLOOD INCANTATION — Timewave Zero (review)

BLOOD INCANTATION — Timewave Zero album cover

EP · 2022 · Non-Metal

3/5 · 2022-03-04
siLLy puPPy

Despite an ever growing number of technical death metal bands vying for the attention of a niche genre that has been growing in recent years, the Denver, Colorado based BLOOD INCANTATION has succeeded where most fail in crafting two gems of genre by fusing the worlds of tech death metal, progressive rock and the ambient and atmospheric accompaniments of spaced out electronica. While “Starspawn” caught the world’s attention, “Hidden History of the Human Race” was the slap in the face that no true metal head could ignore and after having poked the restless fanbase with a stick, it’s always a mystery as to how any given band once given such attention will react.

It seems that amongst the more technical minded extreme metal bands in this stage of the 21st century that there seems to be an ambition for any given band to prove themselves as worthy musicians outside of the context of the world of metal. This has been a growing trend in recent years often resulting in a double release in the same year. I guess this trend started all the way back in the 90s when Ulver decided to completely drop its black metal shtick and jump ship into the world of electronica. This trend was followed by Opeth, Devin Townsend and Anathema but for a technical death metal band on the top of their game?

Well in 2021 the tech death cavern-core band Portal released the one two punch of “Avow” and the dungeon synth “Hagbulbia” and many black metal bands have released dungeon synth non-metal accompaniments. Come to think of it Neurosis also released accompanying ambient albums to be played in tandem with its sludge metal albums under the name Tribes of Neurot so i guess this is somewhat of an underground tradition at this point but was anyone really expecting a Berlin School style album sounding more like classic Tangerine Dream from the 70s from one of tech death’s most revered up and coming acts? I have to admit that this one totally caught me off guard but then again nothing really shocks me any longer so my reaction was that at least BLOOD INCANTATION didn’t decide to make a country album about life in a coal mine. That’s where i draw the line.

And so here we are, the third official album by BLOOD INCANTATION titled TIMEWAVE ZERO which features two lengthy ambient progressive electronic tracks that could easily be mistaken for any given 1970s Klaus Schulze release complete without vocals, guitars, bass and drums. This is amorphous synthesized space drifting in all its freeform glory. If i didn’t know better i’d swear that Edgar Froese or Hans-Joachim Roedelius was behind these sinister streams of sound effects but lo and behold we have a modern day metal band feeling the need to take a chill pill this time around and craft an album’s worth of spaced out ambience that surely won’t sit well with the fanbase and yet for those with more open minds and the ability to just sit back and enjoy the ride, a sensual journey into the downtime between the metallic uproar episodes that allow the sensuality of astral body journeys to take place.

TIMEWAVE ZERO is very much influenced by the progressive Berlin School electronic acts of the 1970s right down to the running time of two tracks adding up to just over 40 minutes of playing time. While fans of classic Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze may have something to gravitate towards in this whippersnapper’s delight, modern tech deathers are scratching their head in dismay wondering what the fuck is up with these dudes! Two tracks titled “Io” and “Ea” swallow up an album’s length of extraterrestrial ambience that allow your consciousness to escape the confines of bombastic metal and enter the ethereal zone whether you signed up for it or not. I guess why not. Buckethead has mastered multiple genres over the decades with a whole series of progressive electronic albums so if you don’t like this one i’m sure the next album will blow your mind away with all those crazy guitar riffs, bass bantering and percussive blastbeasts. For now, it’s transcendental mind expansion.

As a lover of virtually every genre under the sun, it’s not really the fact that BLOOD INCANTATION has released an ambient progressive electronic album that really disappoints me at all but rather i find this album a bit lackluster in terms of what genre it exists in. I have in my vast collection of albums a fair share of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Mort Garson, Jean Michel Jarre and other similar acts so i’m no stranger to the world of ambient and progressive electronic music by any means. In fact i downright enjoy it although it’s not my main staple of music for sure. This is a style of music that is reserved for those moments of contemplation where only a complete journey of transcendental existentialism is in order. This is a special kind of music indeed and one that literally makes you feel like you have entered a wormhole and are being transported from our fucked up reality on this prison planet and transported into some higher level civilization where all shortcomings of consciousness have been overcome.

Ambient album aside, i just don’t feel the band has mastered this style of music in a way that makes it their own. Rather they are merely emulating the progressive electronic masters of the past without really adding anything new to the style. Granted these guys have done a splendid job of mixing psychedelic electronica with technical death metal but as a stand alone project of this side of the equation i find this album a bit on the generic side of the progressive electronic equation without really adding that extra something that makes it their own. I’m not sure why BLOOD INCANTATION thought that this was a good idea just after they pretty much rose to the top of the tech death metal game but if this is what they want to release then i can’t say it’s an unenjoyable experience by any means. It’s just that for someone like myself well versed in this style of music, it’s not very inventive either. For metal-centric head bangers who have not yet experienced this music, then i do have to say that this very well may be an excellent introduction to the world of Berlin School progressive electronic music but i would advise you to head straight to the 1970s and experience the classics of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze which exceed this in quality. Having said that, this is a decent album but not OMG great.