Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (Review)

This is the third album from US death metallers Blood Incantation.

2016’s Starspawn and 2019’s Hidden History of the Human Race were both great records, and now we finally have the much-anticipated Absolute Elsewhere. It’s Blood Incantation’s longest album at 44 minutes, and uses this time wisely to showcase its mastery of cosmic progressive death metal.

Absolute Elsewhere is an album of two sides. It’s basically two songs, (and the band even released the first as a complete 20-minute video), so why they felt the need to split them up on the album into six tracks in total is beyond me. Regardless, Absolute Elsewhere really cements Blood Incantation’s presence as a creative force in extreme metal.

The music’s style is a cross between old-school death metal and a 70s progressive rock sci-fi epic – think Morbid Angel and Rush, for a very rough starting point. On the one hand it’s crushing and monstrous, on the other it’s spacefaring, spacious, and vast. Enriched with synths and a skilled grasp of worldbuilding, this is Blood Incantation at their most ambitious and adventurous. It’s also them at their most accomplished, working with their influences extremely well to create music that’s expressive and atmospheric, while incorporating new ones too, (clean vocals, a black metal influence, etc.). With all of this though, Absolute Elsewhere still slays with a death metal heart, (there are some absolutely murderous riffs on this thing).

The progressive side of Blood Incantation has been dialled up, and the results are marvellous. The 70s prog rock feel permeates the album deeply, and makes it a joy to listen to. That it’s presented within an expansive death metal framework just makes it all the better; the songs are masterfully crafted exemplars of stylistic hybridisation. They are delivered with passionate depth, and flow with the fluidity of music that paints vivid mental landscapes with sound. Absolute Elsewhere offers a journey, and it’s an experience you shouldn’t turn down.

Blood Incantation made a mark with Starspawn, proved it was no fluke with Hidden History of the Human Race, and have now ascended to yet another level entirely. Both albums ended up on my year end lists for their respective years, (2016 / 2019), so where does this leave their latest? We’ll find out in a few months. For now, it’s enough to say that Absolute Elsewhere takes Blood Incantation to a rarefied state of being, where they are sounding simply more and more like themselves, while still obviously belonging to the progressive death metal subgenre.

I confess that while I was hoping for good things from Absolute Elsewhere, I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it is. Absolute Elsewhere is Blood Incantation at their best. Do not miss out on this.

Essential listening.