Blood Incantation
Timewave Zero
Century Media
Released: February 25, 2022
The long-awaited new Blood Incantation is upon us, but Timewave Zero will have some scratching their heads.
Lets talk about that big, fat, pink elephant in the room right off the bat. Straight up, if you’re going into Timewave Zero expecting a follow-up to 2019’s massive Hidden History Of The Human Race are you ever going to be frustrated. This couldn’t possibly sound any further from that record. That album had guitars.
Blood Incantation have spent the past decade establishing a reputation for creating powerful atmospheric death metal with progressive elements, while gradually incorporating more psychedelic & ambient components with each new release. The inevitable zenith of these increasingly exploratory excursions has columnated here, resulted in Timewave Zero. Remember when Pink Floyd, the band that wrote The Wall and Dark Side Of The Moon, also released stuff like Ummagumma and A Saucerful of Secrets, well then you’re on the right track.
This then, becomes Blood Incantation’s Ummagumma; an archaic planetarium soundtrack, taking the listener on a cinematic journey through the Stargate, into the vast darkness of Outer Space, and beyond the infinite transcendental luminosity of the Mind´s Eye. Which is a fancy talk way of saying this is some far-out shit. Also a really long winded way of saying that you’re not getting a death metal record here, not even close, this is dark ambient akin to what Ulver do now, for movie soundtracks and such.
See Also: Deeper Graves “The Colossal Sleep” Review
As it so happens, I enjoy dark ambient and eerie soundscapes, and as such, Timewave Zero is right up my alley. All two tracks of it. With Io, a drone, trance-like ambiance is struck up. Best experienced with the lights out and eyes closed. Io has the ability to transcend plains – especially if aided with a little of the devil’s lettuce, if you know what I’m saying. A heavy bass-driven pulsation sweeps throughout the room, sweeping the listener, if willing, off into the stars. Cold, calm, and beautiful. None of which are words I ever imagined I would be using to describe a piece of music written by Blood Incantation. Alas, here we are.
On Ea, the meditative calm found on Io remains intact. Reminiscent of Daft Punk’s work on the Tron Legacy soundtrack, albeit without the more electronic elements they are known for. Eerie, with segments that give the subwoofer buried in dust in the corner a workout. Very much a continuation from Io, Ea doesn’t diver too much from the first piece, which is a tad bit disappointing. Then again, the two tracks together create a loop, or a symbiosis. Each of the two tracks on this record run roughly twenty minutes a piece, and apparently there is a third, even longer track that is available only on the digipak version (which I am not privy to here) that I’ll have to hunt down at some point in the future. Food for thought for when picking which version of the record you wish to obtain.
Now, normally I listen to an album at least eight times before putting pen to paper, but with Timewave Zero, I had a rather difficult time doing so. That being because each time, I found myself drifting away in a meditative state. Completely relaxed and as if floating into my own subconsciousness. Sober or otherwise, the results were always similar. Given that I often listen to new music when travelling about the city or at work, that made it hard to give proper time to this new Blood Incantation release. At this point, I should also add that Timewave Zero sounds great on a good stereo – and also through a decent set of headphones. The irony being that, normally, if I wrote an artist literally lulled me to sleep – it would be a negative, whereas it is but a positive in this case.
Copies of Blood Incantation’s Timewave Zero can be scored off of the Century Media records website – and believe it or not, comes recommended. Next time I have a sleepless night, where my asshole brain refuses to shut up, it’s getting a heavy does of Timewave Zero ran through it.
For Fans Of: Pink Floyd, Ulver, Raison D’Etre
Track Listing:
01. Io
02. Ea
