St. Louis has been under a heat advisory. The heat and humidity have conspired to create an oppressive feeling simply by leaving the house. It hurts to breathe. The car feels like hell on earth. Is there a better way to take in a Death Metal show? It’s time to put on your cargo shorts and get to it.

In this city, extreme metal sub-genres sometimes get overlooked, so it was rather surprising that a non-legacy band had filled up Delmar Hall. It made the night all the better to have an engaged crowd that needed a release.

In what certainly must have been a first, it was only a two-band lineup on a weeknight for Metal with no local openers.

Krallice was up first. They’re a long-time Black Metal band from Queens, New York. Black metal isn’t one of my personal favorites. The black metal projects I like tend to be different from the standard Mayhem and Darkthrone worship that occurs frequently.

It would be wonderful to tell you that this band was more of the former than the latter, but that would be a lie. This band screamed, wailed, and moaned. The angst, anxiety, and pain were palpable.

There was something more esoteric, though, and that was the riffing. Naturally, black metal isn’t riffy like death metal or Thrash, but there’s typically something to latch onto, and in this case, there just wasn’t much to sink my teeth into.

Krallice performed well, did their songs justice, but much like the saxophone in Pink Floyd, the keyboards were far too much for me.

Now, let’s move onto the stars of the evening, Blood Incantation.

Does anyone need an introduction to these mighty lords of Progressive Death Metal?

No? Good.

Quickly, they provided me with what the opening act did not: thunderous riffs. They were heavy, thick, and oppressive like the heat warning the city has been under for the past month, and they were just as unyielding.

They deftly moved between songs, moods, and methods. They sounded the siren’s call for us to attend our own funerals, but once the audience was ready to climb into the casket, they’d switch.

Now they demanded we raise our fists in defiance. We are still on the right side of the daisies, and it’s better to keep it that way.

As they played large swaths of their new record, lead singer Paul Reidl, announced that this was the end of the first side, and if we’d be so kind to flip the record, the show could continue.

What so many people on the outside of this sub-genre will never know is that it’s not a celebration of death, but a celebration of life. Blood Incantation knows this and made everyone happy to be in Delmar Hall with them last night.

They exceed expectations in all forms. They played a show like it was an album. Sequencing is a lost art in this singles, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok video world, but metalheads are old school.

Blood Incantation played to that, and took everyone there on a journey. This was my first time seeing the band. They’ve made sure that I’m going to attempt to see them every chance I get.

Why?

Because they broke the death metal thirty-minute rule. Most death metal is only enjoyable to me for about 30-35 minutes because it grows too fatiguing. Blood Incantation had me wanting them to play all night.

Buy Blood Incantation music and merch here:
https://bloodincantation.bandcamp.com/album/absolute-elsewhere-24-bit-hd-audio

NIK CAMERON
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