Blood Incantation, Underground Arts, Philadelphia, Nov. 25, 2024

Roughly twenty minutes and twenty seconds into Blood Incantation’s set, they pause to confirm they have played the first song off their new album, and will now proceed to side two. We face them from the other side of the runic towers at the front of the stage. Pulsing phaser lights climb the rear curtain, a veil to other worlds the music reveals. We know from streaming formats that each song can be divided into three tablets, and we hear the changes even as the whole is continuous. Phrases like melt your face and zap your brains have no meaning outside an experience like this. Vocalist and guitarist Paul Riedl interjects the occasional nonlinguistic quasi-monosyllable (p’ah!), head tilted back to the stars, to accompany our own gleeful ejecta as we head onto the next interstellar ramp. Horns are thrown from floor and stage. Climb on losers, we’re going where we’ve never been before. 5 out of 5 sacs of blood.

—J †Johnson