So, the most-awaited Death-Metal album of the year lives up to the hype around it - Blood Incantation is back!
For people not really acquainted with Tech-Death the new record by Denver’s Blood Incantation (released via Dark Descent Records) will sound like pure a fistfight between King Kong and a T-Rex, with the king of the monkeys playing the guitar and the king of the carnivores providing the growls and howls that for now shall be called vocals. This battle for the ages takes place in a desert wasteland on a godforsaken planet, revolving around a blue sun, which every once in a while makes the place so cold that even the two monsters have to stop to take a breath.
The record starts like every good fight with a lot of rage and the monsters are exchanging their blows heavily and quickly. The audience is blown into their chairs and cannot take a breath because there is so much going on. However, after the first part of the fight (here called “Slave Species of the Gods”) the middle part of the fight starts when both contestants have to think of their stamina as they were unable to deliver a knockout in the first part and now might be facing a full length fight – Blood Incantation’s version of that is called “The Giza Power Plant” and the small stops and guitar solos show that it’s not all about speed for them, a musical structure must also have some time to breathe. After roughly two minutes the pub brawl turns technical and the band does so by displaying a doom momentum somewhere between a sitar and a western movie tune.
“Inner Paths (to Outer Space)” follows with a calm intro and some drops of water falling on the barren ground beneath the fighters who have to sit back and wait, they’re coming closer to the final round, “Awakening from the Dream of Existence …” that is an 18-minutes opus displaying all the qualities of a good metal record – speed, doom, great guitar skills and atmosphere. The monsters are taking it out on each other again with body parts flying from left to right, while they still need to take a deep breath every once in a while because it’s been so intense. There are multiple breaks (one of them the long outro) filled with ambient passages and sci-fi noises that show a thorough understanding of dark jazz. King Kong and T-Rex knocked each other out and the dust is settling on their bodies. These calmer moments make the album worth listening – it’s not the speed and the musical skills that make a good record but its ability to look for and behold the necessities of the song.
