Even as you read this, both space and Blood Incantation are creating boundless new frontiers. The band is casting its metal forever onward while posing its own theories about some of humanity’s biggest questions: Where did this all come from? And why are we even here in the first place?
Since forming in 2011, the cosmically inclined quartet’s stratospheric rise from Denver’s underground really rocketed after a pair of critically acclaimed releases. The band's 2016 debut, Starspawn, and 2019’s sophomore followup, Hidden History of the Human Race, showcased Blood Incantation’s penchant for taking the heaviest parts of death metal and somehow making them simultaneously sound chaotically brutal and beautifully psychedelic.
Exploring extraterrestrial themes and deep-space mysteries and questioning life’s origins makes Blood Incantation even more interesting and unique as a death-metal band. Some vinyl releases of Hidden History of the Human Race even included a pamphlet of X-Files-worthy imagery — Egyptian pyramids, UFOs, mystic symbols — as well as a bibliography of titles by such authors as Erich von Däniken, who proposed in Chariots of the Gods? (1968) that certain mysterious happenings and ancient accomplishments resulted from outer-space intervention.
What other death-metal band would give its fans such a heady reading list? That’s Blood Incantation for you.
“I feel like we’re getting to the point now that Blood Incantation is Blood Incantation,” says drummer Isaac Faulk. “If you're signing up for the ride, then we’re going to take you to some surprising new places — but it’s going to be Blood Incantation. You kind of know what you’re getting into, but it’s going to be a surprise.”
And that journey covers much more than just mind-bending albums full of alien theories and art. In 2022, Blood Incantation shared synthwave (yes, a death-metal band did a straight-up synthwave arrangement) with the EP Timewave Zero. That was followed by a hometown show at the Gothic Theatre during which the group played through the hour-plus-long instrumental work; that culminated in a live, special-edition Blu-ray, Timewave Zero – The Debut Performance.
In a sense, Faulk notes, the multimedia element is just as important as the music when looking to create a more immersive experience. It’s what some of his favorite bands have always done, too, and it became the expectation rather than the exception with those groups.
“How do you describe Pink Floyd to people? They did soundtracks. They did other things,” he explains. “I think there’s something so cool about being in a position where, instead of people being like, ‘Well, they’re this type of metal or rock band,’ it’s just the name of the band.”
Fun fact: All of the Blood Incantation members play synth, too. Seriously.
Courtesy Dan Estrada Photography
The short film, which includes analog fluid effects by Chris Parks (The Fountain), centers around a mysterious artifact and its subsequent victims. The band describes it as “a hallucinatory synthesis of science fiction and folk horror" that tells a "surreal tale of primeval blood magic, interdimensional travel and grotesque otherworldly technology beginning in the Dark Ages and journeying into voids of deep space."
“The premiere went great,” Faulk says from the comfort of his home here on Earth. “People were stoked. It was a really fun, unique experience as a death-metal band doing that. We got to have this presentation of the music in a new way. It was fun to be like, ‘Oh, our band is playing music and stuff is happening,’ but we didn’t have to play a show.”
The event — which also included a screening of From Beyond, one of Faulk’s favorite sci-fi/body-horror movies — was part of Blood Incantation’s promotional campaign for its new album, Absolute Elsewhere, set to be released on Friday, October 4, via Century Media Records. The band will play a release show that evening at the Boulder Theater, with ambient and electronic composer Steve Roach opening.
Yeah, it’s not a traditional death-metal concert. But it is a typical Blood Incantation assemblage.
The same could be said of the new record: At over 45 minutes, Absolute Elsewhere is the band's longest full-length offering to date...but it comprises only two “songs.” The short track list is broken into interrelated movements, a method that aligns with most of Blood Incantation’s recent output, each album setting a foundation for the next. “This album felt like a culmination of all that stuff,” Faulk says.
As ardent progressive-rock devotees, the members of Blood Incantation spent a month in Berlin recording at the legendary studio Hansa Tonstudios, a prog powerhouse where Tangerine Dream, Eloy and Brian Eno — some of the band’s biggest influences — created classic albums in the 1970s.
“It felt very magical being in Berlin and being in this place,” Faulk reflects. “All of the things that you would imagine to be at your fingertips as a creative person [are] there, and you’re now in this historical space where all these other great records were made.”
In Berlin, Blood Incantation also collaborated with a handful of like-minded musicians, and the entire process was chronicled in a 73-minute feature film titled All Gates Open: In Search of Absolute Elsewhere. Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning contributed lead synths, Mellotron and programming to “The Stargate [Tablet II]"; Nicklas Malmqvist, of Swedish celestial adventure rockers Hällas, played lead synths/keys, piano and Mellotron on all the tracks (he’s now joining Blood Incantation as a touring member); and Malte Gericke, currently of German death-thrashers Sijjin, contributed guest vocals in his native tongue.
As Faulk sees it, “Almost any idea is not off the table. Every idea is possible.”
“It’s almost like some bands home in on their sound, like, ‘Okay, it’s only this,’" he continues. But with Blood Incantation, "I feel like we’re saying, ‘Oh, no, more and more and more and more stuff.' As a musician, that’s super exciting, because you can break into stuff that you would never have thought you would do in a metal band.”
The result, as Blood Incantation demonstrates time and time again, is the musical equivalent of Graham’s number — a numerical value so big it could theoretically cause your mind to collapse into a black hole (we're pretty sure that’s physically impossible...but still, don’t try it). In all its releases, the Blood Incantation camp provides much more than music. Every detail that goes into each album and track is thoroughly thought out and reveals further obscure annotations.
For example, Absolute Elsewhere references a little-known 1970s prog-rock collective of the same name that included King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford. The band’s one album, In Search of Ancient Gods (1976), served as the musical companion to Chariots of the Gods?, the book that Blood Incantation recommended in Hidden History. The "Stargate” tag is reminiscent of Project Stargate, a U.S. military operation that studied the potential of remote viewing during the Cold War (it’s since been terminated and declassified, so don’t worry). Sci-fi nerds might recognize the album art created by contemporary space painter Steve R. Dodd.
There are so many rabbit holes to fall down. But wherever you start, it’s almost as though Blood Incantation is trying to tell us something, or is at least tirelessly composing its own metaphysical theories, one death-metal composition at a time.
“We're talking about consciousness, and the human race and our history. We’re also talking about space and all this stuff, but we’re serious, and we’re looking at those things and saying, ‘Hey, maybe there’s a lot more to this than we all want to think,” Faulk explains. “Especially today, it’s almost less important if there are aliens. I feel like almost everyone would be like, ‘Well, yeah, probably.’ It’s more important to say, ‘Hey, what’s going on inside each human being and that thing that we call consciousness?’
“If we all can say that there’s this beautiful thing called consciousness in every single human being, that means that every human being is worthwhile, valuable and all the same,” he concludes. “All this race and religion and other stuff, that’s the thing that we should be questioning. That’s the thing that’s keeping us from seeing that. Ultimately, if we can get there, I think that would help a lot of people.”
Blood Incantation, with Steve Roach, 7 p.m. Friday, October 4, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th Street. Tickets are $38.
