“We don’t want to be an old-school death metal band. But if you say ‘progressive death metal’, people expect hyper-sweeps and polyrhythms”: How Blood Incantation fused B.C. Rich, doom and David Gilmour to make one of 2024’s most talked-about metal albums

Blood Incantation's Paul Riedl [left] and Morris Kolontyrsky wear dark sunglasses and hold black BC Rich Ironbirds, a guitar Kolontyrsky says is surprisingly suitable for David Gilmour-style solos.

To borrow a tagline from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the death metal played by Blood Incantation is “the ultimate trip.” And like Stanley Kubrick, they too want to take you through the stargate.

Absolute Elsewhere – the Denver, Colorado band’s third full-length studio album, following 2022’s epic Timewave Zero EP – presents a cosmic perspective on metal guitar that’s more than just Morbid Angel beyond the stars. The new record expands on the genre’s animalism, merging the ambient menace of synthesizer with the wide-open neural pathways of ’70s prog and krautrock.