Three years ago, in 2019, I wrote on this page my “humble” opinion for the latest full-length of Blood Incantation entitled “Hidden History Of The Human Race”. An album that made their name heard a lot in death metal circles and impressed many fans, but not me the strange one.
2022 finds the band from America with a new release that I guess is not what someone in their fanbase would expect. Or at least he would not expect it that way. What I mean? Blood Incantation have shown some interest for sounds outside the death metal (or metal in general) landscape, something that in here is shown much more extensively.
This means that metal goes on vacation and is replaced by ambient. Forget guitars, bass, drums and vocals. Only one synthesizer trying to create atmosphere along with various sound effects. And I say tries because it clearly fails. Time passes and all that is heard is a slow, flat, boring and monotonous buzz without the slightest imagination or even a melody.
The Press Release describes it as a journey among the starts (we know how much this band likes space themes) with sounds from Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, Lustmord, Popol Vuh and Dead Can Dance. I honestly do not know if I should take this as a joke or not, since listening to this EP you are reviewing what the word boring means in your vocabulary. Compared to it, cleaning pigeon droppings from your car is like an exciting life experience.
The EP for anyone who lives dangerously and wants to add it to his collection, is available in two forms. One is on vinyl with a bonus CD and each contains “Io” (21:00) and “Ea” (19:40). The other is on a CD that contains the aforementioned plus “Chronophagia” (27:37), with a Blu-ray bonus but without the third track. I do not know if Blu-ray is pure “music” or has visuals inside.
Also, I do not know if “Chronophagia” is different from the other two since it did not come in the promo package but I very much doubt it. It will logically move at the same level as the rest. “Timewave Zero” for me is just forty minutes lost in my life. I honestly do not know who should be interested in this release. And I do not say that because it is ambient. I say that because it is a bad, boring and uninspiring ambient.