Live Review: Blood Incantation with Steve Roach

The story goes that Decibel‘s Kevin Stewart-Panko, while slinging merch for Blood Incantation on tour, visits a record store in Arizona. The owner knows the management of Steve Roach. Blood Incantation are big fans of Roach. One thing leads to another, Roach becomes a BI fan, and this poster appears: Roach opening for Blood Incantation playing their album Absolute Elsewhere in the Boulder Theater.This is beyond perfect. Metal band with mystical leanings befriends their synth spirit animal. Mystical friends play together in a mystical town literally a mile high. One of them is named Roach. The second haziest show I’ve ever attended (the first, obviously, was Cypress Hill) was Rush. The arena bathroom was a spectacularly dense fug, thanks to middle-aged middle managers who could afford the best stuff. I miss Rush. I booked a flight to Colorado.

Steve Roach live. Pic: Cosmo Lee

Roach is a giant in new age/ambient music. His discography is a mile long; I own 25 of his albums. I was curious how a 69-year-old with keyboards would come off live. He turned the theater into a cathedral. Serene desert sounds gave way to classic prog synths, then gentle tribal rhythms, then transcendental space. An array of wind and percussion instruments added analog interest. The rousing response afterwards seemed to genuinely surprise him.

Blood Incantation came on as a quintet, adding Nicklas Malmqvist of Swedish prog band Hällas on keys. Two sizable geodes flanked the stage. For all the hoopla about “are they ambient or death metal,” Blood Incantation say yes to both on Absolute Elsewhere. Morris Kolontyrsky’s Gilmourisms in “that Pink Floyd section” took me back to 1994, Rice Stadium, Division Bell tour (third haziest show ever). King Crimson and Tangerine Dream also loomed large.

But Absolute Elsewhere doesn’t skimp on the brutes. I got my bang on. All the spacey stuff only made the metal hit harder. I thought of forebears like Death, Atheist, Morbid Angel, and Nile who dared to reach for something higher. The energy was palpable on the street afterwards – excited chatter, I-can’t-believe-that-happened ecstasy. The crisp Colorado air was indeed elevated.

Blood Incantation takes a bow. Pic: Cosmo Lee