Alkaloid – Numen

I had high expectations from this album. Although I had never listened to Alkaloid, before I’ve heard many great things about them. And if a tech-death album is something to look forward to, then a 70-minute tech-death album with a 13-minute-long closing track sounded like everything I could possibly ask for! So, I had to dive right in and see what they’re about. And before the album was even over, I started wondering whether this is another contender for the tech-death album of the year!

Why would I jump to that conclusion so fast? Well, on top of the fact that it is excellently put together as a modern death metal album, it might also be one of the most diverse and multi-faceted extreme metal releases I’ve come across in quite a while, probably since First Fragment put out “Gloire Eternelle”. The compositional approach on “Numen” feels like an evil mix of the best traits from Obscura, First Fragment, and Rivers of Nihil put together. The technical prowess on all instruments is through the roof, and as we see on ‘The Cambrian Explosion’, the most First Fragment-like song on the album, they can clearly go full throttle to create an absurdly fast and technical track. Despite that undeniable skill however, most of the tracks on this album give quite a successful attempt at surprising the listener and breaking most of the expected tech-death tropes. I think the moment it really clicked for me that this album is something else, was when I realized that there are hardly any blast heats on the entire album. Instead, the drum parts rely heavily on versatility, intense cymbal play and whacky snare and tom placements over not so simple rhythms. And that is just when it comes to playing fast. But drummer Hannes Grossmann (Triptykon, Blotted Science, ex-Obscura, ex-Necrophagist, ex-Hate Eternal) is also a master of grooves and jazzy influences. Songs like ‘Clusterfuck’ and ‘Numen’ are great examples of his grooving abilities and creative intricacies. He’s not only a master of death metal drumming, but also a jazz and prog metal expert, being able to warp the rhythmic structure of the songs into pretty much any form imaginable. His level of creativity alone is enough to diversify the compositional approaches enough to justify this album’s length.

Alkaloid – Clusterfuck

And yet, guitarists Christian Münzner (Obscura, Eternity’s End, ex-Necrophagist), Morean (Dark Fortress, Noneuclid) and bassist Linus Klausenitzer (Obsidious, Noneuclid, ex-Obscura) don’t really fall behind in the creativity department. While ‘The Cambrian Explosion’ gives us a taste of their most ludicrous riffs and over the top ego-stroking shreddy solos, on ‘Shades of Shub-Niggurath’ or ‘The Fungi from Yuggoth’ we get a much more satisfying, headbang-friendly approach with seriously beefy riffs. However, no song on ‘Numen’ ever reduces the prog-meter, so you can expect complex time patterns and unexpected changes throughout the entire album. The bass parts are beautifully balanced between stand-out moments, solos, and fluid atmospheric sections on the one hand, and beefy background pummeling on the other. I feel like they managed to merge the modern sci-fi tech-death sound with elements from multiple other genres like old-school death metal, jazz, prog metal, and rock tendencies. Don’t get me wrong, this is still very much a progressive technical death metal album at the core, but the other influences make their presence known just enough to give it a beautifully eclectic touch. There’s also a hint of classical guitar music in the intro to ‘A Fool’s Desire’ and in ‘The Black Siren’.

Morean’s vocals were also a great surprise, mainly due to his clean vocals. His screams are solid and cover a neat range of pitches and textures, so there’s nothing to complain about there. But being able to fit clean vocals in such an extreme context and make them work is quite the accomplishment. His gritty tone and strange melodic lines add so much character to the album, almost like a second personality to the music. There are many backing vocalists featured on the album as well, so it’s hard to tell how much his performance alone is responsible for the rich vocal palette heard on this album, but outside of the screams, we get gritty clean vocals, clear clean vocals and even a technique that sounded like throat singing. And in the chaotically cosmic imagery that the music creates, these voices are a perfect fit to make the album sound like a supernatural adventure breaking the boundaries of time and space!

Alkaloid – The Cambrian Explosion

For more than half the album, the eclectic prog-tech death mixed with various influences pretty much solidifies the album’s sound and after ‘Numen’ hits you with strange rotary effects, you’d expect you probably heard everything they have to offer. But as previously stated, no second in this album is redundant, which is why after about 45 minutes spent solidifying their sound, they start tearing it apart. ‘Recursion’ is the most rhythmically chaotic song on the album, and it starts a sequence of demolishing noise that perpetuates itself into the last 2 songs. The electronic wizardry in ‘The Folding’ and the constant bending and skewing of the guitar sound births an evil atmosphere that takes all their sounds and skills, and mashes them into a stew of primordial chaos, leaving a sense of finality, upon which the 13-minute album closer, ‘Alpha Aur’ develops a cinematic sense of adventure and rebirth. While the album concept is unknown to me, it feels like there is a narrative element to it as well, and from infernal depths, it ascends the listener towards a triumphant finale!

What you have been reading so far is my experience and interpretation of this album, but the truth is, the exact meaning behind it escapes my grasp. I feel like on top of writing an absolute sensory overload for the tech-death listener, Alkaloid also wanted to leave us with a maelstrom of symbolism and abstract lyrics that only birth more questions and curiosity. And with that, I’ll leave you to go and give this beast of an album a listen yourself!

Track List:

1. 1. Qliphosis (07:48)
   2. The Cambrian Explosion (03:58)
   3. Clusterfuck (05:29)
   4. Shades of Shub-Niggurath (06:11)
   5. A Fool’s Desire (08:10)
   6. The Fungi from Yuggoth (06:06)
   7. The Black Siren (01:39)
   8. Numen (07:03)
   9. Recursion (03:30)
   10. The Folding (06:54)
   11. Alpha Aur (13:23)