Blood Incantation’s ascension is definitely warranted and deserved. Picking up influences from bands like Timeghoul and Demilich and molding it into a unique sound of its own, Blood Incantation explores themes of sci-fi and cosmology to create an aesthetic that amplifies the scourge of the blackness of the sound. ‘Starspawn’ was one of the best death metal releases from 2016 and was a great follow up to the acclaimed first EP and the split with Spectral Voice. Blood Incantation continues to stretch their boundaries with ‘Hidden History of the Human Race’, as new colors appear on their canvas.
‘Hidden History of the Human Race’ is the second offering of a band that are on an unknown yet predestined path to cosmic gnosis. The riffs careen across the galactic melodic soundscapes with viscosities alien to the casual. From the production perspective, the sound is a bit grounded and polished when compared to ‘Starspawn’, which had a more atmospheric and spacy quality to it. What this style of production brings to the forefront is the Morbid Angel influence in distributed parts of the album. Technical and progressive writing is a residing feature across the 36 minutes it lasts.
“Slave Species of the Gods” starts off in controlled frantic and reminds me of a darker and more melodic Morbid Angel. Heavy pounding riffs with some amazingly skilled drumming is how we start here. This flows well into how “The Giza Power Plant” starts, but somewhere along the way, this strain of idea is confronted by another – a psychedelic creation that appears to refute what came before. As it shapes up to be a hostile conflict, a surprising resolution is met, as together they reach a high. This psychedelic and jazzy writing continue with “Inner Paths (to Outer Space)” as an ambient introspective piece culminating in a highly energetic death metal section.
Mind you, this was half the album. The other half is structured into one monumental eighteen-minute monstrosity – “Awakening From The Dream Of Existence To The Multidimensional Nature Of Our Reality (Mirror Of The Soul)”. Where you were comfortably left before this with the help of the psychedelic sound was a deafeningly silent outer space. Where you will be taken now is another spatial paradigm, a sickening, uncomfortable and brutal journey. Every transition in the track is an unfolding of a layer of illusion, every riff an unraveling of the cosmic truth. An eighteen-minute Stargate sequence of sorts. This is the most ambitious band has sounded.
Blood Incantation continues to hold on to their uniqueness while reaching for further depths of space. Every arena explored here works exceptionally well without any jaded moments. I didn’t know anything can be combustible in space, because this release is fire.