- To spring from one of modern death metal's most expansive records into something ambitiously ambient may seem like a giant leap but for Blood Incantation its just another small step. I mean, all of their releases thus far have come through Stargate Research Society so you know this crew has interstellar inspiration. The progression also follows a similar lineage to Ancient Aliens storylines: hopping between ideas quicker than a kid designing their own spaceship but ultimately, it all adheres to the peremptory aesthetic of the unknown in outer-space. Timewave Zero outstretches its predecessors in both track-list and duration. Having removed the curious, nigh frenetic searching of their heavier work, Blood Incantation now amble, wander, and seek in shorter and sharper songs. Doing so creates in their work to a more simplistic yet simultaneously grander vision.
The record is split into two compositions; Io and Ea. Both are subsequently split again into four separate internal movements. These now stringently defined parameters provide a cohesiveness that encourages, if not forces the listener to sit through the entire experience. Io: First Movement lumbers from mellow beginnings and ever so gradually shakes off the dustier sounds like a long forgotten vessel being recommissioned after a long slumber. New sounds appear once this dust has been brushed aside, around the three minute mark, progressing with greater and greater clarity. Io: Second Movement orbits around a melodic centrepiece. Diaphanous layers encircle this motif as it fluctuates gently from background to foreground. There's a foreshadowing for the final movement of the first half during Io: Third Movement. Stark, bare expanses ruminate and are filled in ever so slowly by forlorn swarms. To close out Io, its fourth movement sheds discernible and tangible elements. It goes deep into eschewing these parts to instil our first pure sense of space’s infinite emptiness.
Then we begin Ea: First Movement as it appropriates a melody eerily similar to what we’ve heard before, staying in that uncanny valley to confound our memory. Much like the album’s opener, its seven minute heft marks another journey’s beginning. If in the first half we were heading somewhere, the second half is the slow, tiring slink back home. From this long and laborious star more weary and melancholic moments make their presence felt. Ea: Second Movement is a dour drop in mood and Ea: Third Movement allows some dungeon synth twinkles to seep in. Blood Incantation fabricate a great deal of distance with this latter half, Third serving as the most austere example of our sheer, abandoned loneliness. A final, almost defeated moment is Ea: Fourth Movement’s descent to wherever we’re landing.
Timewave Zero is an enormous stylistic departure from what comes before it makes it all the more engaging and interesting. To turn from a frenzied search for meaning in the stars to a drawn out exploration of the world above can be an understandable turn-off for some. For those who wish to embark on this, however, you’ll learn to come to peace with the knowledge that not everything is able to be known.
- Matt Lynch.