Blood Incantation : " Absolute Elsewhere"

Blood Incantation pushes the bounds of death metal further into prog on this album, as it opens in a more Rush-like fashion. The drummer makes himself known right from the start. Granted death metal drummers have to be good to cut it, but this guy might be one of the best metal drummers in the game right now.  They are students of 70s prog for sure, as it floats in on a cloud of weed smoke and science fiction. The Moog solo brings a Pink Floytd feel that is only pushed further to the dark side of the moon but the phrasing of the guitar solo. 

Before we go further here is what is going are here. The album is six songs, but they are being presented as two songs broken up into three pieces, if you played this in shuffle mode you would not be confused. The second song is more krautrock it wanders on for a bit building up into a metal climax 
for the last minute, but it is a pretty kicking riff so it's all good. The third song has an angular riff that grinds with the machine-like shifting heard on post-domination" albums. The blast off with a space-tinged feel to the rapid-fire drumming. It is not a bass mix so it's not really dark, but very precise. It wanders into tribal drumming and exotic instrumentation. Sung vocals also surface here to give things a Cynic feel. 

If you followed what I told you earlier the 4th song is the first song of the "Stargate" section. It's more of an early 90s death metal feel here. The riffs pummel more than groove until they break down into a more melodic section. There is a pretty epic guitar solo on the song. , It does eventually go into a more Slayer-inspired riff. The song after this, goes into a jazzy groove. It eventually weaves to another Pink Floyd-like floating. There is almost a power metal-like feel to the riff of the last song. Though it weaves in a more technical direction. This is before the wandering prog section of this 11-minute song. All of this occurs not even halfway into the song before the more blasting drums kick up. The more grandiose themes return, feeling like something you might expect more from Coheed and Cambrai. From there is of course blasts into a more frantic pounding.. Over all their big adventure pays off as they are much more than a death metal band now, I will give this a 9. 

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