The album was recorded during the summer of 2023 at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin.[2][5] Arthur Rizk, who previously worked with the thrash metal band Power Trip, produced the album.[2][5] The band stated in an interview that they hired an extra €9,000 worth of synth equipment to record the album.[2] Lead singer and guitarist Paul Riedl stated "Absolute Elsewhere is our most potent audial extract/musical trip yet; like the soundtrack to a Herzog-style sci-fi epic about the history of/battle for human consciousness itself, via a '70s prog album played by a '90s death metal band from the future."[5][6]
On September 27, 2024, the band released "The Stargate", the first song on the album, accompanied by a short film directed by Michael Ragen and produced by Mindy Kelly.[7][8][6][9][10] The band released a 73-minute documentary titled All Gates Open: In Search Of Absolute Elsewhere alongside the album.[9][11]Thorsten Quaeschning of the German electronic music band Tangerine Dream contributed synths to "The Stargate [Tablet II]".[12]
Musical style
The album has been described as death metal,[3][13]progressive metal,[3] and progressive rock.[3][13] The album consists of two tracks, both exceeding 20 minutes in length. Each track is divided into 3 sections, called "tablets".[3][10][14] The album is over 43 minutes long, making it the band's longest studio album to date.[11]
Absolute Elsewhere received widespread acclaim upon release. According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Absolute Elsewhere received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 92 out of 100 from 7 critic scores.[15] It is the third highest rated music release of 2024 on the site, behind Brat and Songs of a Lost World.[19]
Reviewing it for AllMusic, Paul Simpson described it as, "a headstrong rush of slashing riffs, complex time signatures, tripped-out growling, and wild, surreal left turns." and concluded, "Blood Incantation belong to the class of bands such as Gorguts, Demilich, and Sigh who push extreme metal far beyond its conventions, and Absolute Elsewhere is a towering achievement which exceeds all expectations."[16]
Dom Lawson of Metal Hammer gave it four and a half stars, stating "Blood Incantation's new album is two songs long. It's also pure prog-death perfection and one of the best metal albums of 2024."[3]Pitchfork's Sam Goldner gave it a score of 8.5/10, writing: "Just when it can't seem to get any bigger, it all gets swept away, echoing out to some arcane, far-off land, where fantasy is alive and the riffs roam free."[18] Nick Russel of Kerrang! gave it a score of 4/5 and wrote "There are moments that do spooky, cunning, Morbid Angel-styled death metal better than Morbid Angel over the past decade, and there are bits, such as the second movement of Tablet II, that could have been written by Pink Floyd at their most cosmic."[14]
