All Gates Open (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Blood Incantation
Release date: June 5, 2026Label: Century Media
Following their departure with their death metal sound that they’re known for with the 2022 release of Timewave Zero, Blood Incantation wanted to prove to themselves that they’re more than just the growling, cookie-monster vocals and take a different approach into the space, ambient, and atmospheric voyages taken from the books of the Berlin School of Music. Some love the album, some don’t.
Which is fine; not everyone has to like Timewave Zero. But you can’t just be a progressive death metal band, 24/7. You want to go into another area that is beyond the death metal sound and throw yourself into the worlds of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Cluster, and Harmonia, rolled into one delicious psychedelic smoothie.
Well, here we are now in 2026, where we see Blood Incantation doing the music for a documentary. They did show the band tackling the recording of their fourth studio album, Absolute Everywhere, entitled All Gates Open. The trailer shows us the band taking us inside the legendary Hansa Tonstudio, where bands and artists like David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode, Marillion, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nick Cave, David Sylvian, and Wire had recorded their classic albums in the famous studio.
It also features members from Hällas, Tangerine Dream, and Berlin-based death metal trio Sijjin. Listening to the score of All Gates Open, you feel as if you are stepping into those artistic visual worlds in a way that sci-fi artist Jodie Day has unveiled to the world. It does have some resemblance to the adult illustrated fantasy magazine Heavy Metal that it brings to mind.
Jodie’s artwork speaks volume. It tells a story. But the music itself brings the visuality and wonders in its meditative form. However, you can tell that Jodie, known as Sacred Cuts, is tipping her hat to the legend who created Den, Richard Corben. But let’s get straight into the music.
The music is almost not just organic space rock but a cosmic system unveiling our worlds into others. From the moment the 20-minute piece ‘Balance’ begins, we feel ourselves meditating during these tricky times in the world, hoping for a sign of peace with a sun-rising quality with a mixture of the mourning quality over the loss of a loved one and finding its path to embark on a painful journey to move forward and bend filled with remembrance.
Its synthesisers bring to mind the wonders of Vangelis and his textures, but not forgetting the myths of Popol Vuh and Schulze’s Irrlicht, walking into the mystical caves with crystalised diamonds filling the area with awe and wonder. I would not compare it to Oldfield, because it would be much of a cop-out, but you can tell that Blood Incantation have done their homework, bringing the krautrock genre to a standstill.
The surreal yet uplifting warmth behind ‘Flight’ sees the incantation walking into Eno’s territory during the Apollo and Music for Airports era, with a bit of Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’ thrown into the middle of this sense of loss and flying into the clouds, being free from the chaos that’s going down below. Its blend of late ’70s and early ’80s post-rock/new wave format can set up an impressive waltz to witness a city on the brink of collapse in this Orwellian universe.
‘Dawn’ is an organ-like awakening, exhibiting the art illustrations of the French minds of Moebius, Druillet, and Caza as we walk into the world of Frippertronics that blends in the mythology in its 5-minute structure, whilst the closing track ‘Rain,’ clocking in at 13 minutes, is the calm after the storm.
Its rain has stopped in the heart of a futuristic city as the first glimpse of the sun peaks in the heart of the dark, grey clouds for a chance to see a bit of a bright light coming upon the wings to be free and be glad to witness its true form with our very eyes. There are acoustic guitars, alarming moogs, and blaring noises of the keyboards, setting up this peak of sending the listener to begin a brand-new day, not knowing the danger that’s upon us.
This is the true point of what will lie ahead in the years to come in the future, say in the 33rd century, as the Incantation has unfolded more brainstorming curricula to see what they will think of next. And it’s quite the ultimate trip, like you’ve never heard it before.
