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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Blood Incantation -Timewave Zero (2022)

Timewave Zero was met with an understandably divisive reaction as it went on to more fully explore Blood Incantation's ambient influences, which to this point had only been manifest in parts of a few instrumentals or interludes on their albums. To an extent, I can sympathize with the naysayers...the logo is the same, and it's such a massive shift that it might as well be another band entirely, but it's not as if this was the first time in history some extreme metal acts took 180 turns. Hell, look at Beherit or Burzum, or many others who embarked on ambient or electronic or dungeon synth paths away from the blasting and growling. I'm all for bands evolving, in fact some of my favorites like Enslaved or Voivod have made careers of it, but this could certainly be seen as a bridge too far...

Fortunately, Timewave Zero is quite good. 2-3 epic length ambient tracks, (depending on which version you've acquired), moody and mesmerizing, and at the very least, featuring contributions from all the death metal band members. So even though this might come off as a vanity project that extends the earlier hints of this style, it's all hands on deck as they surf further along the radiance of quasars and emptiness of the vacuum between worlds. The textures are obvious but also subtle, with a couple different synth-lines layered together, some repetitious and others more celestial and spacious, but it's mostly quite smoothed-over, you don't get into the abrasive droning or noisy sounds that a lot of darker ambient projects explore, at least not in "Io" or "Ea". As most you feel the atmosphere of alien worlds through a few sweltering crescendos of what might feel like colossal elder beings stretching their galaxy-wide limb, or really a cinematic feel that will trigger nostalgia for old sci fi films in which the synthesizer-based composers really earned their scratch.

There's also a little touch of acoustic guitar deep into the experience which is a nice bridge back to the familiar, and this is perhaps my favorite part, when the little synths play off against this. If you've got the version with "Chronophagia", this is a much darker, improvised and longer tune where a lot of those more droning aspects come into effect, with some moody synth lines out in the astral murk that really impress as another of the highlight. My CD copy does not have this track and it kind of pisses me off, I didn't do my research but I HIGHLY recommend you get that version with the CD + Blu Ray or the multiple records, because it definitely adds a lot of value to the release and then it really becomes more of a full-length than an EP as the band states.

Now, admittedly I don't have a ton of knowledge when it comes to this genre...I do have hundreds of ambient, dark ambient, New Age, dungeon synth, space synth and other releases digitally, and also a bunch in physical form. I love the stuff. I dig my Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Jean-Michael Jarre, Fenriz' Neptune Towers, and many more, but I don't know that I can precisely pinpoint the influences that Riedl and company most lean on for this. But it's clearly fluent in that spacey style, immersive and just as easy to get lost in as any of their death metal material, though I think this is obviously a lot simpler and probably easier to put together. I think it would work better as a spin-off, or perhaps integrated into their heavier side, but ultimately what matters is the quality of what's on the disc, and this is enjoyable if not revolutionary for its style.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race (2019)

If Starspawn was a record that exploded its own audience through a shitstorm of positive critical response and massive scene hype, Hidden History of the Human Race was the record that had to LIVE UP to all of that; and I can remember the high anticipation levels, palpable, like heaving and sweating Shoggoth's as this thing was first introduced. The full-length sophomore was in no way a disappointment, not to say that I think it's quite as good as the album before it, but again, like that from the EP before it, the band seems to have taken some baby steps in evolution. I was also pretty surprised to see the familiar cover artwork, not only from the Canadian Agony album from the 90s, but at the UMass sci fi library we had a copy of the Brian Aldiss sci-fi book it was first used on, and I guess it remains as intriguing here as then, if not quite so novel (har har).

I felt like this album, at only four tracks, really unleashes with a lot more death metal and less of the experimentation I might have expected. Loads of Morbid Angel, Nile, Cannibal Corpse vibes coming off "Slave Species of the Gods" and "The Giza Power Plant", where I would have thought they'd get stranger and spacier from the artwork and the lyrics which embrace the extraterrestrial themes and Chariot of the Gods stuff. It's not until "Inner Paths (To Outer Space)" that I get what I was honestly looking forward to, a piece that evolves from ambient adventurism to a proggy and forward-thinking style reminiscent of Cynic, Atheist and mid-era Pestilence. This is a much better instrumental than the one on the album before it, and sets you up for the 18 minute epic closer which is by far the most dizzying and impressive piece on the album, every bit the measure of the two previous releases. In fact I'll say that the latter half of this album is more compelling in general than the former, and even the flighty, crazy death metal riffing has more going for it as it fragments off into more unpredictable directions.

That's not to say the first two cuts are throwaways by any means, they're quality death metal, but the otherworldy/intellectual side of the band just isn't as present there. Fortunately, the rest does compensate for this, and I can only imagine if we were to get a full-length with 2-3 tracks that are as frenzied and bonkers as "Awakening from the Dream of Existence to the Multidimensional Nature of Our Reality (Mirror of the Soul)", the title of which is obviously a little throwback to how Demilich used to label their tunes with the ridiculous word-count. Musically, those Finns are also a reference in this one, but where they focused more on the grooves, this takes that style and thrusts it into hypserspace oblivion, so that when they DO break out into something slower and more roiling, you really feel it. They also spin it off into another ambient section, so the writing is really on the wall for where the band might head next. I just didn't expect how FAR. As it stands, Hidden History is another success for the Coloradans, but I feel it frontloads its less interesting (but still solid) material and is lacking just a little as a result.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

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Blood Incantation - Starspawn (2016)

Starspawn is, for me, what really got this extradimensional party started. It wasn't my introduction to Blood Incantation, but the first material I actually purchased, that truly drew me on board the (deserved) hype train the band was riding. It's a natural successor to the EP, not necessarily eclipsing that in technicality, but clearly more ambitious and adventurous in structure, without escaping the gravitational pull of its more obvious influences, which could be drawn from an admixture of Floridian, Canadian and Finnish DM royalty. Again, not a ton of material here, just five tracks in 34 minutes, but at the same time, there's no fat to trim, no excess to the band's ideas that they can't pull off. They focus on making these five cohesive and memorable, and they succeed.

The production is a little denser than the previous release, and at the same time, it's more airy and atmospheric, especially on the melodies and leads like you'll hear pretty quickly in the depths of the 13 minute beast that opens this, "Vitrification of Blood (Part 1)". This tune covers the whole range of the band's fury from the start, whether it's the thundering blasts and writhing OSDM tremolo riffs, or the more proggy leaning grooves over which Paul Riedl's gutturals roar off into the cosmos with an appreciable reverb. The band yet again achieves that organic feel, murky but sincere, though I feel that the opening track definitely lends itself to more exploration as in the extended bridge with the chugging grooves and simple melodic lead licks ringing out, like a rocket transforming into a doomed space hulk in a slower orbit about some alien sun. The rest of the tracks are much more controlled at around 4-7 minutes, and get an equal amount of ground covered.

I definitely think Paul's voice is a bit more effective here, and there's a wider variety of riffs natural occurring since they've got twice the space to maneuver about in. The drums are tireless but never too insane, the band also got it's proper bass player here, also using a fretless, though I wouldn't say its leaps and bounds beyond the performance on the EP; the guitars and beats and growls just take center stage here, so it can get lost a bit behind their bulk, even though it's still audible most of the play length. There is an instrumental piece here which starts off more in the spacey dark ambient realm before turning into some clean guitars, it's a bit of a relief from the heavier material, but at the same time it sounds like it's a few separate ideas just being strewn together and it's easily the weakest cut of the five, and doesn't quite live up to its awesome title "Meticulous Soul Devourment". To some extent, it foreshadows their later ambient work, but it's not as interesting as that, just sort of an experiment that doesn't fully pan out.

Otherwise, Starpawn is awesome, and it's a record that does earn its place as one of the outbreak underground sensations of that 2010s time period. Is it quite the masterpiece that some might claim? Not exactly, if only because when broken down, the songs and riffs aren't always as sticky as I'd like, but as a sum experience it's very impressive and it's very natural feel holds up now as much as when I first listened through it. I could live without the instrument, but it's not the idea of the thing that lets me down, only that it needs a better flow, not only within itself, but with the tracks sandwiching it. Along with Interdimensional Extinction, this is pretty much the strongest era of the band thus far, but like I've said before, they don't have a ton of material out yet, I feel there is just so much yet to come and Blood Incantation won't be afraid to take some risks, some chances that might churn out even more impressive results.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]

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Blood Incantation - Interdimensional Extinction EP (2015)

Blood Incantation is one of the foremost entities to reap the death metal whirlwind of the last decade, expanding upon the cosmic sound of groups like Morbid Angel, Gorguts and the unknown Timeghoul through intelligent songwriting and really honing down their material to what counts. Hell, not including their ambient distractions and a handful of the demo tunes, they've only got about 14 metal tracks from this Interdimensional Extinction EP all the way to the present on the major releases, but they've made a huge splash regardless, landing themselves onto big tours, topping a myriad of years' end lists from various bloggers and publications, and already establishing some genuine staying power within the genre, assuming they stick with it (more on that later).

I didn't quite clamp on to Interdimensional Extinction at first, it was Starspawn that really drew me into the band's sound, but in retrospect, as I revisit this, I think it might be their best-produced of the extreme material, a compelling burst of slightly technical, progressive death metal which calls on anything from their Floridian forebears to hints of the old Finnish scene. The songwriting is varied, from faster melodic sequences to flailing leads and a few concentrated, mid-paced elements which might even channel a little epic death/doom ("Hovering Lifeless"). There's a little Moog playing here too which definitely exerts the nerdier prog inspirations, and its presence helps place this album into the sphere of related works like Spheres by Pestilence with all its synth-guitars, even though it's nowhere near as out there and not quite so original. This is more playing around in a swirling, pure death metal context and just putting out some feelers into the unknown, like a rocket hurtling to an eldritch universe and making first contact with the spawn of the Old Ones existing there.

What's most impressive to me about Blood Incantation is how they create such an otherworldly sound while remaining so organic. Listening through their first few releases, I always get the impression they can pull this off quite closely in the rehearsal space or on the stage, there's an honesty, where a lot of spacier bands will pull out every studio trick possible or wank off their technical wizardry. The Coloradan trio does none of that here, it's pure raw talent, and warmer tones, with a genuine pump to the rhythm guitars, clear and blazing leads that don't attempt to polish themselves off too much, maintaining just a trace of the unhinged. The drums are very good and there's also a fretless session bassist, the latter reminding me of Tony Choi when he was doing Pestilence of Cynic although I'll admit I can't quite tell the difference with the frets or not in some cases. But in this mix, everything shines, there's nothing repressed and its easy to hear how they've cultivated so much respect.

Interdimensional Extinction is easily one of the better 'introduction' EPs in death metal this last decade, and going back to it I think it might even be one of my favorite releases from the band, if not the singular favorite, though it's not as corpulent or escapist as Starspawn. It's just the right blend of grounded and weird, with a lot of haunting details like the vocal clamor at the end of "Subterranean Aeon", or the creepy clean guitars that herald "Hovering Lifeless" while the snappy, jazzy drums attack right into the blasting, ensuing mayhem. Absolutely worth picking up now as the EP is much more readily available than when the band first broke out.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]

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