Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere
Blood Incantation named their fourth studio LP after a little-known but well-loved cult progressive rock group, an instrumental prog/kosmiche band led by a then-16-year-old who, in 1976, put out their sole LP (only to have a sophomore release this very year, coincidentally) of post-Rick Wakeman synth-led instrumental music. This fact alone tells you a great deal about what waits for you as you press play on this new studio record, whose opening few moments even sounds like the opening of “Relax,” the lead-off cut from Absolute Elsewhere’s new LP from only a bit ago. So the fact that the record is two 20-minute long cuts, a timestamp of much cultural importance in the LP-born world of ’70s progressive rock, is not a shock. Blood Incantation likewise share another element with Absolute Elsewhere: their lyrical fixation with ancient aliens hypotheses and other pseudo-spiritual beliefs, an aesthetic that gives their death metal and progressive rock a science fictional bent far more aligned with Yes circa Tales from Topographic Oceans, itself made of four sidelong cuts, than it does Deicide.
I interviewed the band shortly after the release of Hidden History of the Human Race, which itself sported a side-long closing track, the album structured like an inverse of Rush’s 2112. During that interview, I begged them to indulge this spirit more, given the superlative nature of that closing track, which, along with the instrumental preceding it, is what cinched that LP’s position as my album of the year along with many other critics and listeners in the metal world. The band told me two things: one, that was very much the intent, not just of the next record but of the group, which had a rough arc of several records plotted out at least in terms of their scope; two, that the band wasn’t done adding sonic elements to their repertoire, not by a longshot. Timewave Zero, their somewhat lacking kosmiche record, which showed solid genre work but felt more iterative than additive, I had presumed was that addition. I was wrong. It’s this.
Within the first several minutes, the group covers an already enormous amount of ground, with Yes-inspired sound design openings, a Morbid Angel-by-way-of-Voivod death metal passage, then a lengthy and quite soulful instrumental portion that feels equally inspired by Pink Floyd and their undersung German counterparts Eloy. Melechesh soon joins the fray, along with Nile and Death, bringing a particular bent to melodic riffing in death metal that avoids ever being a melodeath waste of time. Later in the record, math rock and emo chord voicings and picking patterns show up alongside Voivodian chordal portions, tritone-heavy riffs that read more Rush and King Crimson than old school death metal, oh, and the very best kosmiche the band has ever put to tape. The secret to that sudden punch-up, which was already good but now is suddenly great? A current member of Tangerine Dream who, despite lacking any founding members, is putting out some of the very best material of their history again, alongside similar rebooted groups like Gong or the always-interesting Hawkwind and its spin-offs and spiritual successors. (You can trust me on the Tangerine Dream comment. Oh boy, can you trust me.) This isn’t the only guest, though; keys all over the record are provided by Nicklas Malmqvist from Hällas, himself a great cross between Rick Wakeman and Jon Lord, with just enough Tony Banks thrown in to really focus on arrangement rather than ego.
These additions and sonic detours feel so natural. If you closed your eyes and pressed play, this would not read as a band featuring guests, putting out their fourth record, following on from an already Hall of Fame-worthy career. Instead, it sounds like an impassioned and brilliant debut, a band with more ideas than they know what to do with finding themselves and promising an insanely bright career ahead of them. Suddenly, Blood Incantation doesn’t feel like a death metal band anymore, even though there’s still plenty of the stuff all over this record. There is such a tremendous sense of renewal and regeneration that, similar to Ulthar’s histrionic and brilliant development on their last double LP, feels like a new band cracking the carapace of the old with more potential evolutionary paths available to them than we could have ever anticipated. And, given their history, there’s hardly reason to believe this might be the last again, to repeat the word, brilliant left turn that makes us totally re-evaluate what these guys are capable of.
The members of Blood Incantation show up elsewhere, in groups like Black Curse, Stormkeep, Wayfarer, Spectral Voice and Lykotonon, all forward-thinking extreme metal groups. Blood Incantation feels always a step above those already excellent bands, some of the best in their fields; it also feels like the home that receives the fruits of all of these experiments and developments elsewhere, perpetually nourished and fed by a constant influx of new ideas. I mentioned before that the 20-minute sidelong epic is of particular importance in the classic prog world. This is the mark that Yes hit with “Close to the Edge,” the title cut of the consensus agreed best progressive rock record of all time. This is the mark Genesis hit with “Supper’s Ready,” a prog epic as ramshackle as it is exciting, shooting in a million directions to score an eschatological surrealist vision of a set of lyrics. It is a mark that, with tracks like “A Change of Seasons” and “Black Rose Immortal,” also are lynchpins of the careers of other progressive metal royalty like Dream Theater and Opeth (a band who also, it should be noted, named not one but two albums after obscure single-release progressive rock bands).
I think the reason why I mention that history and, more importantly, that company, should be obvious by now. To say that this record is Blood Incantation’s best in an already landmark career isn’t enough. To say that the experiments of Timewave Zero, which were interesting but not yet fully developed, or on Luminous Bridge, which functions as a 20-minute prelude to this record and is rightly thought of as the proper beginning of the album, are paid off likewise doesn’t do justice to this record. I felt as it played the same belligerent awe I felt the first time I heard Crack the Skye by Mastodon, Ghost Reveries by Opeth or Focus by Cynic. That this record is itself only the tip of a greater spear, with short films and documentaries and additional music coming down the pipe, is indication that everyone who’s touched or heard this record so far are all in agreement with how special this is and how impossibly bright and wide the future for this group is. Their debut demo was a thrill, their debut LP an instant classic, their phenomenal followup a stargazing gesture to the much-greater ambitions of a group previously known as merely the best death metal group of the old school revival. With Absolute Elsewhere, the group takes their place beside legends like Gorguts and Morbid Angel. Their sights are set even higher. I now have reason to believe they may achieve them.
Label: Century Media
Year: 2024
Similar Albums:
Blood Incantation : Absolute Elsewhere
Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums we cover are chosen by our editors and contributors.
