Blood Incantation
Absolute Elsewhere
CENTURY MEDIA
Whether they know it or not, Blood Incantation serve a distinct purpose in the newly rejuvenated subgenre of death metal. Lamb of God, Mastodon, Opeth, and Meshuggah are all rightly credited for breathing fresh air into the decaying corpse of the widely reviled genre after grunge was blamed for steamrolling it into the ground in a burial plot shared with glam metal in the early ’90s. The genre lucked out when these new horsemen of sorts galloped into town carrying not an apothecary’s bottle of antidote but rather a concept that was foreign to the mainstream. The four saviors, by cross-pollinating two subgenres apiece, had made it seem as if they’d invented a magical, divine elixir when in reality they’d merely stirred some Ovaltine into a glass of milk.
By the time the aughts came to a close, each of these bands had cemented die-hard followings with their riotous fanbases. But in 2011, Denver’s Blood Incantation came crashing down the Rockies like an avalanche. They carried with them an even more audacious strain of metal than what had come before it, blending together a more technical take on death metal with prog-rock influences and, for good measure, a dash of ambient sound. True heads could come up with endless theories as to why Blood Incantation opted to introduce themselves in such an inauspicious way right out of the gate. Maybe they wanted to one-up older generations of metal bands who’d stuck to the same formula for decades. Maybe they wanted metalheads to know from the very first song that they were a serious band to be reckoned with. The most credible theory, however, is that they wanted to demonstrate immediately that their technical proficiency would allow them to experiment in ways that less-talented bands could not.
Thirteen years later and Blood Incantation has edged as close as they can to the proverbial lines of scrimmage that distinguish metal subgenres from one another on their third album, Absolute Elsewhere. There’s a catch, though, to Blood Incantation trying to do too much. Sure, they’ve concocted something totally new, but don’t you remember what happened when you and your elementary school peers experimented with mixing Coke, 7-Up, Barq’s, Gatorade, and packets of mustard together? While admittedly a dramatic example, it’s a similar sensation on Absolute Elsewhere by the time Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning brings his Mellotron to the record’s second track. Sure, from time to time it’s fun incorporating harmless items from the kitchen cabinet—there’s always a chance, however slim, that your experimental liquids might defeat corporate competitors, that they might be far more potent than OTC sugar and water mixtures.
But it’s also important to remember that less is almost always more—no matter how adeptly these carefully selected ingredients are applied.
