Blood Incantation - Luminescent Bridge EP (2023)

Rather than making some major career choice and consigning one of their two styles to oblivion or a side project, Blood Incantation instead move forward with both their death metal and cosmic ambient halves on this latest single. As someone who enjoyed both of these creative entities, I can't say that I'm terribly disappointed, but I'm not sure how long this sort of split personality can be maintained without the band needing to spin off of them off. Or perhaps it never will be. On the downside, I don't feel that, for this particular release, both halves are created equally. Competent, for sure, but while the band expends a lot of effort to return to the death metal that put it on the map, and succeeds there, I don't feel like the opposite is the case...

"Obliquity of the Ecliptic" is quite good, at least on the level of the first two tracks off Hidden History, with some dark grooves to it and no shying away from the blasted mayhem, with just a few hints of proggier structures poking through. This track itself does have an ambient segue, and a nice one with the drums rolling around, an organic and glittering vibe to it when the soft synth pads do arrive. Eventually, it explodes into a more glorious, melodic second half and you really do feel through the almost 9 minutes that you've gone on some adventure. As for "Luminescent Bridge", it's got some nice clean guitar tones and spacious ambient textures, as well as a lead guitar that breaks out deep in its bridge (if ambient tracks can really have a 'bridge'), but it's just not as immersive for me as Timewave Zero was, though I dug the horn sounds at the end. It might even feel like it was thrown together because they didn't have two death metal tracks ready...I've mentioned it before, but considering the band's huge underground status they haven't put out a ton of tunes, they tend to take their time.

Nothing wrong with that, but I just can't envision myself revisiting this piece very often, and thus would probably prefer of "Obliquity" was just on another EP or full-length album. Is that track good enough after four years since Hidden History? I'd say it's adequate, if not exemplary. As a brief, 20 minute single or EP though, this is barely enough to tide the audience over as they anticipate whatever comes next or what style it might invoke. It's hard not to think, with all their exposure, and then the total turn towards the ambient for the 2022 record, that whatever comes next for Blood Incantation could be their 'ride or die', their 'make or break' to the fanbase and their expanding audience. No reason to believe they can't rise to the challenge, but I don't think we'll need any more little morsels like this while we wait to find out.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

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