Blood Incantation have finally released a preview into their forthcoming album, Absolute Elsewhere which sees its release next Friday via Century Media. Its first movement, ‘The Stargate’ is available today in its entirety across digital retailers and comes with an exquisite short film, The Stargate which was directed by award winning cinematographer Michael Ragen (Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: The Viewing) and features mesmerising analog fluid effects by Chris Parks (The Fountain).
‘The Stargate’ Side One: A violent storm invokes the familiar before a grand cosmic key turn for a hint of sweeping scope to come with spiritual acknowledgement and accompaniment by Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning on synths on the song’s second tablet. Musically as violent as it is mediative, with subtle spoken passages flitting between Nicklas Malmqvist’s (Hällas) busy synthesiser keys and Mellotron strings invoking both the modern and ancient, and it is all given sharp focus by Arthur Rizk’s powerfully dynamic and enveloping mix. Blood Incantation depart Extreme Metal’s traditionally antiquated way-station, warping their way towards ‘Genre of One’ stature, as ‘The Stargate’ intones the disembodiment of consciousness itself, careening through the stargate towards Samsara-like reincarnation, punctuated by the occasional growl from Sijjin/ex-Necros Christos main-man, Malte Gericke.
‘The Stargate’ short film is unlike anything you have experienced before. It presents the saga of a mysterious artefact and its victims in a hallucinatory synthesis of science fiction and folk horror, where mind-bending imagery and unsettling atmospheres converge in a surreal tale of primeval blood magic, inter-dimensional travel and grotesque otherworldly technology beginning in the Dark Ages and journeying into voids of deep space.
Watch the video here:
AA
Absolute Elsewhere hovers at nearly 45 minutes, their longest full length recording yet, the album’s two movements – ‘The Stargate’ and ‘The Message’ – are as confounding as they are engaging, exponentially expanding upon the formulas laid down by their scene-shattering debut Starspawn (2016) and landmark follow up Hidden History of the Human Race (2019).
As Blood Incantation’s Paul Riedl tells, “Absolute Elsewhere is our most potent audial extract/musical trip yet; like the soundtrack to a Herzog-style Sci-Fi epic about the history of/battle for human consciousness itself, via a 70s Prog album played by a 90s Death Metal band from the future.” For inspiration, the group looked to the mid-70’s progressive rock collective, Absolute Elsewhere (best known as a celestial stopover for King Crimson drummer, Bill Bruford) as the album’s namesake. For the uninitiated, Absolute Elsewhere’s obscure 1976 album, In Search of Ancient Gods, was constructed as a musical accompaniment to the works of Chariots of the Gods author, Erich Von Daniken, and his theories of non-terrestrial humanoid prompts towards mankind’s evolution. The subject matter of which should serve as no surprise to anyone familiar with Blood Incantation’s cosmically philosophical leanings. But make no mistake, the four musicians working under the Blood Incantation banner for the past decade – guitarist and vocalist Paul Riedl, drummer Isaac Faulk, guitarist Morris Kolontyrsky and bassist Jeff Barrett – have successfully left the microgravity of genre behind and are re-writing the Rosetta Stone of extreme music with a new language entirely. Demonstrations like their 2022 all-synth show or 2024’s Roadburn Festival headlining appearance where they played back-to-back death metal and ambient made it clear: Blood Incantation have honed their abilities to go boldly where few bands have gone before, and reveal no signs of slowing down.
Absolute Elsewhere’s release comes alongside a 73 minute feature film All Gates Open: In Search Of Absolute Elsewhere which tells the story of their time in Berlin during the summer of 2023, while recording at the legendary Hansa Studios. It will be available on Blu-Ray with the album’s deluxe mediabook package and will also include the documentary’s original soundtrack, All Gates Open (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) which includes 60 minutes of exclusive new music distinct from the new album. This special edition will also include Blood Incantation’s 2023 maxi-single, ‘Luminescent Bridge’ for the first time ever on CD, and of course, Absolute Elsewhere in both standard and Dolby Atmos / 5.1 mixes, alongside exclusive liner notes, exclusive interviews, behind the scenes photos and a forward by Ross Dolan of Immolation.
Photo By Julian Weigand
Aural Aggravation 