BLOOD INCANTATION "Hidden History of the Human Race"

BLOOD INCANTATION

"Hidden History of the Human Race"

At some point in the distant future, whatever species that inherits the Earth after the human race has destroyed itself will come across the remnants of our society and try to make sense of it. Good luck with that! If these future beings come across the music of BLOOD INCANTATION, they will be hard put to translate and understand the band's logo, which looks like a pile of sticks you might gather after a wind storm.

Once that puzzle is solved, the music must be deciphered. And here we have death metal that can be utterly brutal or surprisingly calm and progressive. BLOOD INCANTATION's cosmic brand of death has caused quite a stir the last couple of year and "Hidden History of the Human Race" should kick their career into overdrive. This album ranges from the complete savagery of SUFFOCATION and CANNIBAL CORPSE to the complex technical flow of ATHEIST and mid-period DEATH, with some cosmic weirdness and CYNIC-inspired jazziness. Along the way, they discuss the more outre theories of human existence, which like the guy with the crazy hair on the History Channel suggests is answered by one word: ALIENS.

Just four tracks here, but one is a near 20 minute monster and the others are also fairly robust. BLOOD INCANTATION establish their brutal death metal cred immediately with "Slave Species of the Gods", which roars and blasts with authority. The super deep and echoey growls of Paul Riedl fit the band to a T and I'm actually glad the band doesn't experiment with clean vocals. "The Giza Power Plant" is another aggressive DM song, but with mind-twisting riffology and ATHEIST-style guitar flourishes. BLOOD INCANTATION reminds me a lot of the band MITHRAS, who tried their hand at sci-fi death metal in the early 2000's but couldn't make much headway. There are brief sections of jazzy prog in a lighter vein in these songs, but not much. "Inner Paths" (to Outer Space) is where the band's experimental tendencies become very pronounced. Half this song is a slow burning build from almost New Age space sounds to gradually intensifying metal that finally bursts out in a roar in the second half.

The real challenge is the 18 minute plus "Awakening From The Dream" (Mirror of the Soul). It is extremely hard to make a track this long listenable but BLOOD INCANTATION does a great job of it here, starting with constantly shifting and mutating death metal that keeps your interest, then moving into a very calm mid-section before building back up into raging death and ending with restrained ambience. You will hear very few tracks this long that are worthy, but BLOOD INCANTATION have done it.

These metallic cosmonauts are continuing along a path blazed by ATHEIST, MITHRAS and VEKTOR but doing justice to that sound in full.

DARK DESCENT

BLOOD INCANTATION