Live Review : Blood Incantation + Oranssi Pazuzu + Sijjin @ Albert Hall, Manchester on October 8th 2025

This evening is all about expectation. Blood Incantation blew everyone away last year with an album that challenged the very core of our music. “Absolutely Elsewhere” topped every end-of-year chart going (including our own), and the furore started to build about seeing these songs come to life in a live context. The size of venues on this tour is a massive step up for a band that has previously haunted the tiny but legendary Nambucca in London (now horribly gentrified). The expectation is both how the astonishing Tablet suite (that makes up the whole album) is reproduced in the flesh and also how Blood Incantation cope with their sudden, but well-deserved, transfer to the big league.

People tend to forget that the American variant of death metal emerged out of thrash. Early Morbid Angel, Sepultura and Obituary recordings all share a merging of the styles that was relentlessly fast but also guttural in its malicious intent. Sijjin take us back to those rumbling early days. It is old skool in both its malevolence and its speed. It slows down a bit for ‘Religious Insanity Denies Slavery’ but it retains its integral nastiness with the 'fuck your god' refrains. Basically, this is first album Metallica with Corpsegrinder on vocals and ‘Five Blades’ is fittingly reminiscent of ‘Master Of Puppets’ reinterpreted by Cannibal Corpse. As with any power trio, everything is laid bare for all to see. They are tight and twisted, with Iván Hernández particularly impressive, keeping a driving rhythm on the drums. Final track ‘Condemned By Primal Contact’ revels in its driving velocity and primal singularity and it prophetically signals an end to any element of simplicity this evening.

If Sijjin were enjoyable but rather meat and potato then Oranssi Pazuzu are an extravagant fusion dish defying the rules of culinary convention. This is boundary pushing black metal concentrating hard on the avant-garde. It is mesmerising in both its intensity and also its steadfast ambition to emulate nothing that has come before it. It fluctuates in its aggression with the second track ‘Kuulen ääniä maan Alta’, a maelstrom of burbling electronics and steady beats. As it progresses, the tension builds, creating an ominous cyclone of sound that simultaneously edifies and horrifies. To try and pinpoint a core to their sound is impossible. They are a melting pot of swirling psychedelic overtones, industrial rhythms and agonising screams that interface to create a unique and heady proposition.

It feels like a distorted ritualistic pursuit and there is a particular perverted joy to seeing the band members writhing around punishing their instruments. There are snippets of groove and even the odd promise of melody, but in the end, this is a nihilistic deconstruction of everything that we believed to be stipulated within musical form. Challenging and peerless, an astonishing performance that leaves one desperately evaluating what music actually is.

Blood Incantation are fully aware that they have leaped up the venue hierarchy because of one record and proceed to give it to us in its entirety. “Absolute Elsewhere” in the fine tradition of 70s prog is actually two lengthy continuous pieces of music nominally split into three movements each. For the vinyl connoisseur, there is one “track” on each side, and after ‘Stargate’ they even ask a young lady in the front row to pretend she is flipping the record over and putting the stylus back on the groove so they can head into the side B track ‘The Message’. The absolute genius of “Absolute Elsewhere” and essentially the band itself is the way that they seamlessly marry apocalyptic noise with beautifully deep resonating melodic prog. These two styles live side-by-side and they fluctuate between them at a second's notice.

The grizzled death metal feels like being plunged to the very depths of a murky pool. Claustrophobic and discombobulating, it is an act of pure sensory overload. But as they miraculously cut to the precision engineered and beautifully refined prog, the sensation becomes one of being pulled out into the light, suddenly seeing the beauty of the world appear once again around you. Both sensations and approaches are not new to our world but to utilise them in this level of close proximity feels both daring and revolutionary. The album is pretty much replicated as we hear it on record but really that is what we want. There is no deviation or free-form reinterpretation. However, watching the musicians cultivate the sound live gives what is already two absolutely astonishing tracks, extra verve and exhilaration. The final furlong of Tablet III of the Message is an astounding tableau of sound that starts muted and introspective, but becomes bold and intrusive. By the time that it reaches its eventual and eventful conclusion, everyone within the Albert Hall’s exquisite surroundings are pumping fists in ecstasy.

Even though it is obvious that the majority of people here tonight discovered Blood Incantation with last year's album, there is actually a lot more to them than the genre-busting “Absolute Elsewhere”. ‘The Giza Power Plant’ hails from 2019’s “Hidden History of the Human Race and is no less technical than its more revered younger siblings. If anything, it is even heavier, and it contains enticingly exotic eastern influences. ‘The Vth Tablet (Of Enuma Elis)’ is plucked from their initial ep and sounds within the whole scheme of things, primal and savage. It has a heavy interior that undulates with power, and you can feel the very fabric of this austere building vibrate. They look to another EP cut for their crushing finale. Recorded the year before their breakthrough masterpiece, you can hear the ideas beginning to form in ‘Obliquity Of The Ecliptic’. It provides a fittingly apocalyptic ending and whilst the crowd have been respectful and almost reverent throughout the show they erupt in ecstatic adulation as the band take their final bow. An incredible evening that puts the icing on the cake of all the reverence about “Absolutely Elsewhere”. Blood Incantation are quite simply the most inventive band currently operating in metal, and it is now certain that there will be yet another venue jump when they make their next visit to these shores.

With thanks to Gareth Beckley for additional perspective and thoughts.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Blood Incantation + Oranssi Pazuzu + Sijjin