Live Review: Blood Incantation - Albert Hall, Manchester
8th October 2025
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Rich Price
At first consideration, a death metal gig at one of Manchester’s most gothic venues is not as much of a match as the last time I was here, back in the spring with Opeth, or seeing Killing Joke here, or even the earth-shaking drone of Sunn, just prior to lock down. There’s a magic about this location that adds something extra to a performance beyond the mere recitation of musicians; it’s as though the architecture itself, with the stained-glass windows, baroque-stylings and impressive organ pipes, crave to hear music played.
Taking account of the headliner’s progressive and cosmic nature and maybe the Albert Hall is the right place to host this tour package, after all. [chin-stroking emoji],
Opening the show is German/Spanish hybrid death thrashers, Sijjin, whose early set time does not find them going easy on Manchester. Daemon Blessex starts the show with spewed bile and rampaging guitars; Dagger of a Thousand Deaths keeps the set in the purview of the debut full-length, Sumerian Promises, raging with reckless abandon. Sophomore record Helljjin Combat, released this year, changes pace somewhat with the blackened rasps and crawling riffs of Religious Insanity Denies Slavery, and the thrashing Five Blades, having a little of the early Morbid Angel sound going on. The show ends back at the debut for the old school death stomp of Condemned by Primal Contact.
Oranssi Pazuzu’s Muuntautuja album has been out for around a year now and psychedelic Finns return to Manchester after supporting Sólstafir at the Club Academy last November. The band’s misanthropic stance apes Godflesh’s industrial slog, the uncanny use of accoutrementonly adding to the overall unsettling nature of the show. Crazy jazz rhythms and black metal vocals blend to obfuscate any chance you might have of nailing down the band’s core sound; best, instead, to disengage the parts of the brain looking for meaning and allow the overwhelming otherness of the performance to do its thing.
Damnation forums have been awash with calls for Blood Incantation to be booked for the festival, with the requests going back years. It’s not the Bowler’s and it’s nothing to do with the festival brand whatsoever, but it’s the autumn and the Colorado-based progressive Death Metal crew are in Manchester, we’ll take what we’re given.
Released to widespread acclaim in 2024, Absolute Elsewhere’s two epic tunes, divided into six ‘tablets’ of extremity and psychedelia is to be played in all its majesty tonight, plus a host of other fan favourites.
The show begins with the crushing old school death metal riffing of The Stargate, Tablet I, Paul Riedl’s vocals adopting a David Vincent/ Corpsegrinder growl to the point where Seventies synths take over, transporting the tune to higher realms of time and thought. Tablet II is largely ambient and instrumental until guitars scream, making way for Tablet III’s journey to the stars.
The second half of the album is given over to The Message, where the simple stage set is flooded with blood red and harsh white lights. Guitarist windmill as classic death metal riffs are conjured, fighting for space with the lush synths, offering a disconcerting mix of a gut punch and a head-fuck happening simultaneously.
Tablet II of The Message features a mid-section that would not be a stranger on a Roger Waters record, flowing into the eleven-minute soaring finale of Tablet III. Following immediately on is The Giza Power Plant from 2019’s Hidden History of the Human Race, the ambience of Absolute Elsewhere’s central tablets, here sounding more akin to the instrumental passages on a Mithras record, down to the tortured bends and guitar tone.
It's a trip back to 2015 and the debut EP, Interdimensional Extinction’s The Vth Tablet (Of Enûma Eliš), comparatively straightforward for Blood Incantation, but brimming with the spacey atmosphere that would go on to colour their body of work. The ethereal, haunting strains of Meticulous Soul Devourment, taken from the Starspawn debut, bridges the gap to gloriously-titled Obliquity of the Ecliptic, with its thundering delivery and full-bodied denouement, bringing the curtain down on a mesmerizingly brutal show from three of the progressive extreme’s most competent bands.
An epic night of mind-bending music and crushing, bludgeoning riffs, all delivered in one of town’s most serene venues. Rather than assuage the calls for Blood Incantation to be booked for Damnation, I believe this performance will have merely stoked the fire of those wanting more.
Photo Credits: Rich Price Photography
