I have been a huge fan of Blood Incantation for a while and understand why they are controversial amongst death metal and prog fans alike. So far, Blood Incantation had not yet made an album that was a perfect distillment of their sound and concept, with their progressive influences rubbing against a classic death metal stitched together with little differentiation in tone. In a way, I enjoyed the jankiness of that older Blood Incantation sound, as it leaned into its contradictions and, consequently felt informed by an sense of irony and real fascination with outer space. However, it seemed impossible to shake the bad taste that came after 2022’s Timewave Zero, a synth-oriented ambient (zero death metal) work that felt more like a proof of concept than an album fully formed. Serving simple and not particularly deep synth textures could not feed what deathheads craved, and for synth enthusiasts, Timewave Zero had nothing to offer that could not be found much better elsewhere. In hindsight, that album appears to have been a necessary stepping stone, an experimentation with an element that is new to Blood Incantation — a musical study assignment best left unreleased.
Absolute Elsewhere is not like that. In fact, and I will give the conclusion to this review away prematurely, Absolute Elsewhere might be the best album released all year. Yet, I dreaded writing this review since the album’s release for that very reason. Absolute Elsewhere is the kind of album that could fall flat on its face, and would do so in most cases in different hands, but Blood Incantation have found their own way with it. Stuffed full of allusions, quotes and references to classic prog, Absolute Elsewhere quotes its reference material so closely between its two 20-minute sides that even a casual listener could pick up on what is being quoted. Blood Incantation don’t really go for deep cuts either, referencing albums as well-known as Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side of the Moon and getting Tangerine Dream synth man Thorsten Quaeschning on board to flesh out electronic experiments. All of this finds contrast with classic, albeit heavily progged up, death metal. A collage of all that Blood Incantation love, Absolute Elsewhere proves its creators as real auteurs not willing to compromise on any sonic elements. Transitions across the board still can be harsh and abrupt, sometimes slipping from passage to passage with little but a chord held longer than the others, or a reverb-tail, blending into the new segment. And yet, the experience never breaks, never feels jarring, Blood Incantation managing an immense level of cohesion and a constant flow and push that allows 43 minutes to fly by.
Normally, I would criticize a band that just puts disparate parts next to each other, because, in most cases, this would lead to an album that feels scattered. For some reason, Absolute Elsewhere does work. For some reason, I can’t put it down. Blood Incantation are a bunch of weirdos, but their weirdness is not an act — or, at least, not just an act. Blood Incantation work slow, meticulously. It feels good to know that, in our time, a band can still take three years to make a flop of an album just to acquire the skills to make the next one and keep existing. Blood Incantation seem to work in cosmic spacetime, divorced from the hectic tempo of modern life and from the constant attention seeking of the algorithm and have emerged from their process to deliver Absolute Elsewhere, the best album of the year.
