It has long been my contention that as extreme metal musicians “mature” (read: get older and want to try something beyond just metal), they tend to go one of two routes: stripping things back for a folk/country project or delving into full on prog territory. With their latest release Timewave Zero, Denver death metallers Blood Incantation fall squarely in the latter camp.
Of course, it’s not quite accurate to say that Blood Incantation “went prog.” After all, there’s always been a touch of the progressive and psychedelic in their previous output, but on Timewave Zero, they’ve basically taken anything overtly ‘metal’ out of the equation, trading guitars and death growls for spaced out synth explorations that bring to mind the likes of Tangerine Dream more than they do Morbid Angel or Cannibal Corpse.
Consisting of a pair of ambient compositions entitled “Io” and “Ea”, each roughly 20 minutes in length, the album has a bit of a film score vibe (again, the Tangerine Dream influence is evident throughout) as each track slowly takes the listener on a sonic journey. Fans looking for something heavier might be disappointed, but the album generally works as a bit of a detour from the band’s usual path, showing what they’re capable of when branching out beyond the boundaries of their genre. With Timewave Zero, Blood Incantation have essentially taken the atmospheric elements touched upon in their previous work and turned them up to eleven.
Timewave Zero is out this Friday, February 25 via Century Media Records.