Band:	Blood Incantation
Album:	Absolute Elsewhere
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	October 04, 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. The Stargate
    1 - Tablet I
    2 - Tablet II
    3 - Tablet III
02. The Message
    1 - Tablet I
    2 - Tablet II
    3 - Tablet III

Anyone who’s been following Blood Incantation closely up to this point probably won’t be overly surprised by the nature of this latest step in their musical evolution, but the sheer extent of their progression since we last heard from them is quite something to behold.

The Coloradans have built quite the reputation for themselves already across but a few releases. 2016’s debut album Starspawn swept the underground with a take on death metal that felt both nostalgic and forward-thinking, merging old-school riffs and cavernous production with technical, psychedelic and atmospheric elements, and 2019’s Hidden History Of The Human Race took things to the next level with a further delve into sci-fi and even progressive metal territory. While there was fervent hype for what Blood Incantation would deliver next, a sudden detour into ambient music territory on 2022 EP Timewave Zero prompted mixed reactions; however, Absolute Elsewhere manages to not only recontextualize these ambient aspirations as part of the band’s overall musical journey so far, but also incorporates a slew of other new sounds and ideas into the fray to boot.

The first thing to acknowledge is that what were hints of prog on Hidden History Of The Human Race are now front and center on Absolute Elsewhere; Blood Incantation are undeniably now a progressive death metal band with an emphasis on the prog. Now, they’re certainly not the only band to follow this trajectory in recent years, as anyone who’s been keeping tabs on acts such as Tomb Mold and Chapel Of Disease will be aware of, but the nature in which Blood Incantation approach progressive rock and metal feels fairly unique. A lot of early discourse on the album has focused on a resemblance to Pink Floyd, prompting questions of whether this may be death metal’s answer to Enslaved’s ‘Black Floyd’ sound from the late 2000s; there is certainly an eerie similarity between the bulk of “The Message [Tablet II]” and the style of Pink Floyd on albums such as Animals and The Dark Side Of The Moon (especially with how Paul Riedl channels David Gilmour vocally), but I feel that summarizing this album’s sound as ‘Death Floyd’ overlooks some other integral elements.

The album contains two 20+ minute songs, “The Stargate” and “The Message”, divided into three parts (or “Tablets”, as referred to here), and to some degree there’s an overarching structural similarity; “Tablet I” typically sandwiches some unorthodox melodic and progressive detouring between extreme starts and finishes, while “Tablet II” offshoots into much calmer territory, leaving “Tablet III” to bring everything together and ratchet up the extremity. While “The Message [Tablet II]” is the setting for Blood Incantation’s Pink Floyd tribute, “The Stargate [Tablet II]” is where the band return to Timewave Zero territory; the track is heavily dominated by different synths and keyboards (including contributions by Thorsten Quaeschning from ambient electronic legends Tangerine Dream), reveling in tranquility for a prolonged period of time, before gradually integrating flutes, clean guitar, and eventually death metal in the closing seconds.

Flutes are heard again partway into “The Message [Tablet III]”, as Blood Incantation commit for multiple minutes to exploring the serenity of new age music. Perhaps the most striking sojourn to the realms beyond extreme metal for me, however, occurs during “The Stargate [Tablet I]”; after a blistering couple of minutes, the band transition into a prolonged sequence that more widely explores classic prog rock from the 70s and 80s, from the mellow foundational clean guitar riff and harmonized keyboard solo through to a delightful Camel-esque melodic guitar solo. While Blood Incantation previously hinted at an interest in exploring cleaner, more progressive sounds on tracks such as “Inner Paths (To Outer Space)”, the sheer breadth of different ideas experimented on across Absolute Elsewhere would have been difficult to predict prior to its release.

Now, there’s been a heavy emphasis in this review on all the ways in which Absolute Elsewhere is not extreme metal, but despite this, death metal remains very integral to the album’s composition. Riedl’s cavernous old-school growls make a firm impression, while the riffing on tracks such as “The Stargate [Tablet I]” and “The Message [Tablet I]” strikes a rewarding balance between primitive, technical, progressive and dissonant approaches, with a healthy dollop of frenetic blasting countered by doomier trudging.

Given the extent of the album’s focus elsewhere, there’s some scope for concerns over whether the band have approached the death metal with as much conviction as on the past releases, but for what it’s worth, as much as the album’s most memorable moments reside in its most proggy parts, I don’t feel that there’s a substantial drop in quality when tracks lean towards the more extreme end of the album’s musical spectrum. “The Stargate [Tablet III]” in particular has plenty that I enjoy, whether it’s the Nile-esque Egyptian-themed mid-track interlude, the frenetic solo that follows over a tasty, groovy riff, or the attention-grabbing tapping atop the monstruous, grinding riff in the closing minute or so. I also very much like the psychedelic, technical sounds early in “The Message [Tablet I]”, the rampant riffing towards the end of “The Message [Tablet III]”, and especially the way it eventually becomes paired with a strikingly melodic lead guitar motif to close the album out.

I can also imagine some concerns arising over how seamlessly the light and dark of the album’s sound blend together across Absolute Elsewhere, but while it’s not flawless (as much as I enjoy the passage it leads into, the sudden shift in tone 2 minutes into the album is a bit sudden), I feel like the transitions are often remarkably natural. The way that “The Message [Tablet III]” both enters and exits the aforementioned new age section is far smoother than it has any right to be, while the segue from the Pink Floyd-inspired “The Message [Tablet II]” into the next bout of death metal attack is really clever. I can’t think of that many albums off the top of my head that manage to explore such musical contrasts within close proximity while avoiding much in the way of whiplash.

While we’ll have to wait to see how enduring the hugely positive initial reception that Absolute Elsewhere has received ultimately turns out to be, it is very exciting to see a band as musically accomplished as Blood Incantation sustaining this level of songwriting ambition and executing it with such style.