Currently gaining plaudits everywhere, and deservedly so, Absolute Elsewhere is a sprawling album that takes its cues from expansive prog rock (the album’s name itself is a nod to a Bill Bruford side project), and churning death metal. The most obvious modern cue would be Opeth’s Blackwater Park, given both the band’s instrumental prowess and their ability to deftly juxtapose extremity and calm passages, while recent efforts by the likes of Job For A Cowboy also provide a degree of precedent, although Blood Incantation’s approach is certainly more skewed towards the deeper end of prog. Further burnishing the band’s prog credentials, the album is nominally split into two tracks, although the band have relented a touch, dividing each into three pieces (or “tablets”) for ease of consumption. With each tablet distinct enough that they can be enjoyed in isolation, it makes the album rather less uncompromising than it first appears, although it is best heard in one sitting.
The first track is The Stargate (Tablet I), which does a fantastic job of easing the listener in. It starts amidst thunderous drums and atonal swathes of guitars, the latter evolving into a series of stair-stepping riffs that drive the piece forward. As openings go, it’s a sinus-cleansing dose of death metal but, just as you’ve gotten comfortable, the band introduce trippy, dub-infused drums and sidestep neatly into a passage drawn straight from the Pink Floyd playbook. It’s a neat segue, skilfully executed, and you’ll find yourself wondering if the preceding tumult actually took place. Not that you’ll have too long to wait for an answer, as the band forcefully return to imperious death metal, the surging riffs carrying elements of Nile along on a scented Eastern breeze.
With a guest spot from Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning, Tablet II summons the spirit of Pink Floyd as a subtle arpeggio nods to the infamous briefcase synth that drove DSOTM, before an echoing sample adds a touch of The Orb in for good measure. There’s something sinister to this ambient interlude, however, and it slowly devolves into primal chords played on what sounds like a mellotron. When the death metal aspects do return, it is essentially a means of opening the gateway to Tablet III, which finds the band edging into the abstruse territory last inhabited by Emperor on Prometheus. A ferocious finale to the piece as a whole, it sees the band hold the melody close, even as they bludgeon the listener with hulking great riffs and the relentless pulse of the double kick.
The second piece is titled The Message. Tablet I opens on an airier note. Still heavy, and with drummer Isaac Faulk in berserker mode, it nonetheless finds the band incorporating clean guitar into the mix, although this is soon swept away beneath a tidal wave of guttural vocals and stabbing riffs. Tablet II, as with The Stargate, finds the band shift the ground beneath the listener’s feet, introducing the sort of synth parts that Tony Banks loved to explore, alongside clean vocals and a dark ambience backed by swathes of organ.
The longest single track, Tablet III brings The Message to its epic conclusion. It opens amidst a firestorm of death metal, only to take a more pastoral turn, with rippling guitars and harmony vocals painting a more wistful picture at its core. It returns, of course, to death metal for its finale, although the rich melodies of the keyboards help to provide a climactic element, the guitars and drums fading down amidst a series of echoing synth passages that ease the listener back to the real world.
Overall, Absolute Elsewhere is a deeply impressive offering, and something of a must for fans of progressive death metal. It is not perfect, however, and its biggest flaw is that each of the pieces follows the same basic template, with the bulk of the progressive passages neatly tucked away in the middle tablet. Over the course of a longer album, such an objection may prove fatal, but here, thanks to the band’s exceptional musicianship and Arthur Rizk’s pitch-perfect production, it is easy to overlook. Combining Genesis and Pink Floyd, Nile, Opeth, and Emperor, Absolute Elsewhere soothes and savages in equal measure, and it will be interesting to see where this ambitious band heads next. 8/10
