Chat with Alkaloid about their New Album on Bandcamp

October 5, 2023

Alkaloid Go Deep into 'Numen' with Bandcamp Listening Party

Alkaloid contain more than just multitudes. Their new album 'Numen' compresses meteoric riffs, seductive flurries of jazz and flamenco, and a multi-part saga about a godlike galactic civilization into a dizzying, thrilling 70 minutes.

"Songs like the ones you'll encounter on 'Numen' couldn't be conceived without highly active imaginations", says No Clean Singing.

Lambgoat: "Everything hits in a big way; big enough to be an Outer God of the genre".

That's a lot for any metalhead to unpack. But lucky for us, Alkaloid are hosting a Bandcamp listening party to chat with fans about their new album. Join the metal mad scientists tomorrow at 5 pm EST, when they go behind-the-music into everything from 7/16 time signatures, Stygian choirs and roughly four billion years of multicellular evolution.

Tomorrow happens to be Bandcamp Friday. Purchase 'Numen' or other Alkaloid merch during the listening party and the bulk of your money will go directly to supporting the band!

RSVP for the Bandcamp listening party tomorrow, October 6 @ 5 pm EST.

https://alkaloidsom.bandcamp.com/merch/numen-listening-party

Order 'Numen': https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/alkaloid-numen

Stream the whole album: https://orcd.co/numenpresave

Alkaloid are still bonded together by their love of extreme metal. After all, they are a super group that's assembled from foundational members of Obscura, Dark Fortress, Triptykon and other genre heavyweights. But Numen finds the band playing around with all kinds of experiments. "Shades of Shub Niggurath" brings back the band's chaotic signature death metal to conjure the titular goat-like outer god.

Take a cosmic trip through Lovecraftian space lore by watching the song's new visualizer, which was made by Scott Rudd Film.

Watch it below.

Progressive extreme metallers Alkaloid prepare to unfurl their new many-tentacled full-length, 'Numen' via Season of Mist. Featuring members of Triptykon, Obscura, Dark Fortress, and Obsidious, the Germany-based quartet of Morean (vocals, guitars, concepts), Hannes Grossmann (drums), Christian Münzner (guitars), and Linus Klausenitzer (bass) construct upon, expand away from, and journey between previous full-lengths The Malkuth Grimoire (2015) and Liquid Anatomy (2018) on Numen. In every respect, Alkaloid recommence the purposeful warp of various metallic genres they dimensionally blur. Tracks like the video single for "Clusterfuck,” “The Cambrian Explosion,” and “Numen” posit heavy cosmological/Lovecraftian theoretic themes on top of musically-adept songs that are accessible yet undeniably intricate.

“We’ve all been around the block a few times by now as metal musicians,” says songsmith Morean. “The feeling that we’ve outgrown the narrow niche of pure extreme metal was a main motivator to start this band in the first place, ten years ago. The ‘prog’ tag is handy for us because, per definition, it already encompasses a wider range of possible styles and influences we can get away with than any one specific metal genre. This means we could ensure from the beginning that we’ll always be able to write whatever we want, no matter how crazy our ideas become. The heart of this band is always the songwriting, and we all like complex and virtuosic music in all its diverse manifestations. However, we do share a love for death metal as the smallest common denominator in the band, and we wanted to make sure no one thinks that just because we include melodies, clean guitars, and influences from other genres, we’d automatically sacrifice the brutality and relentless esthetic of extreme metal.”

'Numen' was written during the pandemic, but it was planned long before the scourge of disease wracked humanity. As a result, the songwriting sessions were predictably not "in the room" but over the Internet after the band members had isolated and worked on their constituent parts. Demos flew back and forth. Then, Tunker left amicably for personal reasons. Alkaloid could’ve folded, but the close-knit group soldiered on. They intensely relied on the professionalism and dependability of the collective to drive 'Numen' to completion. The complications of the two years it took to sonically inscribe the album into aeonic vastness didn’t fragment the end result. Instead, the process accelerated Alkaloid’s lambent, eldritch explorations. “Clusterfuck,” “The Cambrian Explosion,” “Numen,” and “A Fool’s Desire” expertly bridge the past to the future, where Alkaloid’s originative, daedal storytelling captures (and holds hostage) the imagination.

The title, 'Numen', got its start at the dawning of Alkaloid. It’s a word that Morean fell in love with immediately, and he knew it had a place in his creative endeavors. Whereas The Malkuth Grimoire talked about combining existing elements into new structures, and Liquid Anatomy dealt with the creation of new elements, 'Numen' tries to look at the universe from a kind of meta-perspective from an imaginary god, as if the space that everything happens in was given a voice and a role as observer and shaper of everything that happens. In it, sentient panspermic mycelia are swathed in Lovecraftian nastiness—like Shub-Niggurath and the Fungi from Yuggoth—while the new Dyson chapters interpret the aspiration to reach divinity rather literally, reshaping the entire galaxy by manipulating spacetime itself. Desperate to escape their doom, the Cephalopods from previous songs have returned, too. 'Numen' is dense but not impenetrable. In fact, from the first moments of opener, "Qliphosis," to the final contemplation of closer "Alpha Aur,” Alkaloid prove to be more charismatic than ever.

Line-up
Morean - guitars, vocals
Christian Münzner - guitars
Linus Klausenitzer - bass
Hannes Grossmann - drums

Recording Studio: Mordor Sounds, Nürnberg, Germany.

Producer: Hannes Grossmann & Alkaloid

Recording & mixing: Hannes Grossmann

Mastering: Alan Douches at West West Side Music studio in Hudson Valley, NY.

Guest musicians
Adam Wallis, Cydney McQuillan-Grace, John Schaffer, Lauren Gill, Sara Robalo, Shannon Bedford

Additional choir tracks on "The Cambrian Explosion" and "Shades of Shub-Niggurath"

Former Alkaloid guitarist Danny Tunker contributed to "The Cambrian Explosion"

Artwork & photos: Christian Martin Weiss

Biography: Chris Dick

Pre-order: https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/alkaloid-numen

Pre-save: https://orcd.co/numenpresave

Format
Digital download
CD Digipak w/mediabook
Black Vinyl (Gatefold)
Coloured Vinyl (Gatefold)

Links
https://alkaloid-band.com/
https://www.facebook.com/alkaloid.metal
https://www.instagram.com/alkaloid_metal/
https://twitter.com/AlkaloidBand
https://www.youtube.com/c/Alkaloidbandmetal
https://alkaloid-band.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KMQDFaAsPEKcqKzdvkYKc

Alkaloid Streaming New Album A Day Early

September 14, 2023

Alkaloid are metal's maddest scientists. The Bavarian band have crafted songs about what lies beneath the Arctic crust, on top of an ongoing, multi-part saga about a galactic civilization that ascends to god-like levels of domination.

'Numen' is their most intricate, thought-provoking and batshit insane album yet. The 70-minute behemoth hits shelves and streaming platforms tomorrow, but you can listen to all eleven tracks now thanks to our friends at No Clean Singing.

Pre-order: https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/alkaloid-numen

Pre-save: https://orcd.co/numenpresave

Alkaloid are still bonded together by their love of extreme metal. After all, they are a super group that's assembled from foundational members of Obscura, Dark Fortress, Triptykon and other genre heavyweights. The fiery, finger-tapped solo that squiggles loose halfway through lead single "Clusterfuck" is crushed like an ant between colliding moons.

But Numen finds the band playing around with all kinds of experiments. "The Cambrian Explosion" flips death metal on its horned head with seductive flurries of jazz and flamenco, while the title track is a dizzying seven-minute yarn of how a supermassive black hole came to burp up an unheard-of cosmic artifact that gives both the song - and the album - its name.

"We proudly present our third album 'Numen', says Alkaloid. "Where 'The Malkuth Grimoire' dealt with the rearrangement of existing particles into new forms, and 'Liquid Anatomy' with the creation of new particles, this album looks at the universe from the perspective of imaginary deities detached altogether from the cycle of life and death of incarnated organisms. This hypothetical viewpoint is reflected on the scales of both biological and cosmological processes. If one could shape and manipulate life and the cosmos itself, how would one go about it, and what would it mean for everything in that cosmos?

Alkaloid Reach Critical Mass on New Single

August 21, 2023

No one has conquered the far reaches of the metalverse quite like Alkaloid. The Bavarian band have crafted songs about what lies beneath the Arctic crust, on top of an ongoing, multi-part saga about a galactic civilization that ascends to god-like levels of domination.

Today, Alkaloid are releasing the latest chapter in the Dyson Saga. "Numen" is a cosmic seven-minute yarn of how a supermassive black hole came to burp up an unheard-of cosmic artifact that gives both the song - and their new album - its name.

Watch the heady lyric video below.

'Numen is out on September 15. Pre-order the album HERE. Pre-save the album HERE.

"We proudly present the title track of our new album, and the first of three new chapters in the ongoing Dyson saga up the Kardashev Scale", says galactic leader Morian from Alkaloid's space station via interstellar transmission. "Through the mindbogglingly complex manipulation of mass, electromagnetism and the structure of spacetime itself over countless aeons, "Numen" transforms into an acceleration hub for sentinel worldlets sent toward other galaxies".

"Numen" amasses sounds from across the spectrum of extreme metal: alien growls mixed with luminous cleans, drum fills that hurtle between mind-bending bass grooves, and riffs that crunch with the force of asteroids while also swirling like the milky way.

"Musically, I mangled materials inspired by Rainbow and Pink Floyd, as well as Meshuggah into a polyrhythmic context, while still staying true to the sound of our Dyson world," says Morian. "The subtle but continuous disturbance of the main 12/16 groove by a stubborn 7/16 layer is a hint at the massive forces at play in the story".

Alkaloid collapse time (and genres) on new single

July 24, 2023

Alkaloid don't just build worlds. They concoct whole universes.

The European supergroup have written multi-part odes to cosmic Lovecraftian entities and ancient Cephalopods who rise up to rule over the future of the Earth.

Think of their new single as extreme prog. metal's answer to the Big Bang theory. "The Cambrian Explosion" compresses four billion years of multicellular evolution into mere minutes. Microbes cluster together. Ancient mycelium stir in the grooves of slimy cell walls. Pulsating stenches soar from trenches, thrust into hyper speed by blistering drum chops and colorfully infused riffs that explode like supernovas.

This song was initially written by former guitarist Danny Tunker, who left it as a sort of parting gift. It's fitting then that it started as a tribute to Alkaloid's death metal roots. But this band have never stayed put long enough to be classified as just one genre. "The Cambrian Explosion" is littered with surprises. We won't give everything away. But when the breakdowns hit, just know that you need to be prepared for anything, whether it's a flair of flamenco or a Stygian choir.

Here's what Alkaloid have to say about their new single: "Danny left us this song before he quit the band. It started as a tribute to our tech death past, but after some additional mangling by the band, the song became something we’re not sure any longer where it belongs, but which excites us all the more for it. The lyric describes four billion years of evolution of multicellular life in under four minutes. We no longer consider ourselves part of the tech death genre; in fact we never did. But we always embrace musical extravaganzas, and felt that this insane little missile of a track as a nod to both where we came from musically and to Danny’s importance in this band in the past fits perfectly in between our other new songs on the album. As luck would have it, we were able to include a passage with a gospel choir directed by Sara Robalo, and managed to include a few other spontaneous and unexpected twists in the spur of the moment. Enjoy!”

The video for "The Cambrian Explosion" was created using Midjourney, an AI image generator. Watch it below.

'Numen' is out September 15 on Season of Mist. Pre-order the album HERE. Pre-save the album HERE.

Progressive extreme metallers Alkaloid prepare to unfurl their new many-tentacled full-length, 'Numen' via Season of Mist. Featuring members of Triptykon, Obscura, Dark Fortress, and Obsidious, the Germany-based quartet of Morean (vocals, guitars, concepts), Hannes Grossmann (drums), Christian Münzner (guitars), and Linus Klausenitzer (bass) construct upon, expand away from, and journey between previous full-lengths The Malkuth Grimoire (2015) and Liquid Anatomy (2018) on Numen. In every respect, Alkaloid recommence the purposeful warp of various metallic genres they dimensionally blur. Tracks like the video single for "Clusterfuck,” “The Cambrian Explosion,” and “Numen” posit heavy cosmological/Lovecraftian theoretic themes on top of musically-adept songs that are accessible yet undeniably intricate.

“We’ve all been around the block a few times by now as metal musicians,” says songsmith Morean. “The feeling that we’ve outgrown the narrow niche of pure extreme metal was a main motivator to start this band in the first place, ten years ago. The ‘prog’ tag is handy for us because, per definition, it already encompasses a wider range of possible styles and influences we can get away with than any one specific metal genre. This means we could ensure from the beginning that we’ll always be able to write whatever we want, no matter how crazy our ideas become. The heart of this band is always the songwriting, and we all like complex and virtuosic music in all its diverse manifestations. However, we do share a love for death metal as the smallest common denominator in the band, and we wanted to make sure no one thinks that just because we include melodies, clean guitars, and influences from other genres, we’d automatically sacrifice the brutality and relentless esthetic of extreme metal.”

'Numen' was written during the pandemic, but it was planned long before the scourge of disease wracked humanity. As a result, the songwriting sessions were predictably not "in the room" but over the Internet after the band members had isolated and worked on their constituent parts. Demos flew back and forth. Then, Tunker left amicably for personal reasons. Alkaloid could’ve folded, but the close-knit group soldiered on. They intensely relied on the professionalism and dependability of the collective to drive 'Numen' to completion. The complications of the two years it took to sonically inscribe the album into aeonic vastness didn’t fragment the end result. Instead, the process accelerated Alkaloid’s lambent, eldritch explorations. “Clusterfuck,” “The Cambrian Explosion,” “Numen,” and “A Fool’s Desire” expertly bridge the past to the future, where Alkaloid’s originative, daedal storytelling captures (and holds hostage) the imagination.

The title, 'Numen', got its start at the dawning of Alkaloid. It’s a word that Morean fell in love with immediately, and he knew it had a place in his creative endeavors. Whereas The Malkuth Grimoire talked about combining existing elements into new structures, and Liquid Anatomy dealt with the creation of new elements, 'Numen' tries to look at the universe from a kind of meta-perspective from an imaginary god, as if the space that everything happens in was given a voice and a role as observer and shaper of everything that happens. In it, sentient panspermic mycelia are swathed in Lovecraftian nastiness—like Shub-Niggurath and the Fungi from Yuggoth—while the new Dyson chapters interpret the aspiration to reach divinity rather literally, reshaping the entire galaxy by manipulating spacetime itself. Desperate to escape their doom, the Cephalopods from previous songs have returned, too. 'Numen' is dense but not impenetrable. In fact, from the first moments of opener, "Qliphosis," to the final contemplation of closer "Alpha Aur,” Alkaloid prove to be more charismatic than ever.

Line-up
Morean - guitars, vocals
Christian Münzner - guitars
Linus Klausenitzer - bass
Hannes Grossmann - drums

Recording Studio: Mordor Sounds, Nürnberg, Germany.

Producer: Sara Robalo

Recording & mixing: Hannes Grossmann

Mastering: Alan Douches at West West Side Music studio in Hudson Valley, NY.

Guest musicians
Adam Wallis, Cydney McQuillan-Grace, John Schaffer, Lauren Gill, Sara Robalo, Shannon Bedford

Additional choir tracks on "The Cambrian Explosion" and "Shades of Shub-Niggurath"

Former Alkaloid guitarist Danny Tunker contributed to "The Cambrian Explosion"

Artwork & photos: Christian Martin Weiss

Biography: Chris Dick

Pre-order: https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/alkaloid-numen

Pre-save: https://orcd.co/numenpresave

Format
Digital download
CD Digipak w/mediabook
Black Vinyl (Gatefold)
Coloured Vinyl (Gatefold)

Links
https://alkaloid-band.com/
https://www.facebook.com/alkaloid.metal
https://twitter.com/AlkaloidBand
https://www.youtube.com/c/Alkaloidbandmetal
https://alkaloid-band.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KMQDFaAsPEKcqKzdvkYKc

ALKALOID Return with Mind-Boggling First Single

June 20, 2023

ALKALOID are mad scientists. With each album, the extreme metal concocters have poked and prodded at mysterious phenomena both of this world and far beyond. They've written a song about what lies beneath the Antarctic crust, as well as an ongoing saga about a galactic civilization that ascends to a god-like-level of domination.

Now, after five years, Alkaloid are back with their third full-length and it's got some of their most intricate, thought-provoking and batshit insane ideas yet. Numen is a 70-minute monolith of an album that doesn't just colonize interstellar space with sentient fungi and cephalopods. No; it grabs the fabric of the universe and ties it into knots to break time and space themselves. The Bavarian band plays around with all kinds of genre experiments, effortlessly flipping death metal on its horned head with seductive flurries of jazz, flamenco, rock and gospel choirs.

But Alkaloid are still bonded together by their love of extreme metal. After all, they are a supergroup made up of long-serving members of Obscura, Dark Fortress, Triptykon and other genre heavyweights. "Clusterfuck" might have a clean and catchy chorus, but even the fiery, finger-tapped solo that squiggles loose around the four-minute mark is crushed like an ant between colliding moons.

Here's what the band has to say about their new single: "It's one of our shorter and more moderate tracks - maybe uncharacteristically so, once you see the whole album. But "Clusterfuck" still covers the classic Alkaloid spectrum between groove, hooks, brutality and complexity. The lyrics address the question of why we as a species should aspire to greatness at all, when we know that in all probability, we're going to fail anyway".

'Numen' will be released on September 15, 2023 by Season of Mist. Pre-save the album HERE. Pre-order it HERE.

Progressive extreme metallers Alkaloid prepare to unfurl their new many-tentacled full-length, 'Numen' via Season of Mist. Featuring members of Triptykon, Obscura, Dark Fortress, and Obsidious, the Germany-based quartet of Morean (vocals, guitars, concepts), Hannes Grossmann (drums), Christian Münzner (guitars), and Linus Klausenitzer (bass) construct upon, expand away from, and journey between previous full-lengths The Malkuth Grimoire (2015) and Liquid Anatomy (2018) on Numen. In every respect, Alkaloid recommence the purposeful warp of various metallic genres they dimensionally blur. Tracks like the video single for "Clusterfuck,” “The Cambrian Explosion,” and “Numen” posit heavy cosmological/Lovecraftian theoretic themes on top of musically-adept songs that are accessible yet undeniably intricate.

“We’ve all been around the block a few times by now as metal musicians,” says songsmith Morean. “The feeling that we’ve outgrown the narrow niche of pure extreme metal was a main motivator to start this band in the first place, ten years ago. The ‘prog’ tag is handy for us because, per definition, it already encompasses a wider range of possible styles and influences we can get away with than any one specific metal genre. This means we could ensure from the beginning that we’ll always be able to write whatever we want, no matter how crazy our ideas become. The heart of this band is always the songwriting, and we all like complex and virtuosic music in all its diverse manifestations. However, we do share a love for death metal as the smallest common denominator in the band, and we wanted to make sure no one thinks that just because we include melodies, clean guitars, and influences from other genres, we’d automatically sacrifice the brutality and relentless esthetic of extreme metal.”

'Numen' was written during the pandemic, but it was planned long before the scourge of disease wracked humanity. As a result, the songwriting sessions were predictably not "in the room" but over the Internet after the band members had isolated and worked on their constituent parts. Demos flew back and forth. Then, Tunker left amicably for personal reasons. Alkaloid could’ve folded, but the close-knit group soldiered on. They intensely relied on the professionalism and dependability of the collective to drive 'Numen' to completion. The complications of the two years it took to sonically inscribe the album into aeonic vastness didn’t fragment the end result. Instead, the process accelerated Alkaloid’s lambent, eldritch explorations. “Clusterfuck,” “The Cambrian Explosion,” “Numen,” and “A Fool’s Desire” expertly bridge the past to the future, where Alkaloid’s originative, daedal storytelling captures (and holds hostage) the imagination.

The title, 'Numen', got its start at the dawning of Alkaloid. It’s a word that Morean fell in love with immediately, and he knew it had a place in his creative endeavors. Whereas The Malkuth Grimoire talked about combining existing elements into new structures, and Liquid Anatomy dealt with the creation of new elements, 'Numen' tries to look at the universe from a kind of meta-perspective from an imaginary god, as if the space that everything happens in was given a voice and a role as observer and shaper of everything that happens. In it, sentient panspermic mycelia are swathed in Lovecraftian nastiness—like Shub-Niggurath and the Fungi from Yuggoth—while the new Dyson chapters interpret the aspiration to reach divinity rather literally, reshaping the entire galaxy by manipulating spacetime itself. Desperate to escape their doom, the Cephalopods from previous songs have returned, too. 'Numen' is dense but not impenetrable. In fact, from the first moments of opener, "Qliphosis," to the final contemplation of closer "Alpha Aur,” Alkaloid prove to be more charismatic than ever.

Line-up
Morean - guitars, vocals
Christian Münzner - guitars
Linus Klausenitzer - bass
Hannes Grossmann - drums

Recording Studio: Mordor Sounds, Nürnberg, Germany.

Producer: Sara Robalo

Recording & mixing: Hannes Grossmann

Mastering: Alan Douches at West West Side Music studio in Hudson Valley, NY.

Guest musicians
Adam Wallis, Cydney McQuillan-Grace, John Schaffer, Lauren Gill, Sara Robalo, Shannon Bedford

Additional choir tracks on "The Cambrian Explosion" and "Shades of Shub-Niggurath"

Former Alkaloid guitarist Danny Tunker contributed to "The Cambrian Explosion"

Artwork & photos: Christian Martin Weiss

Biography: Chris Dick

Pre-order: https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/alkaloid-numen

Pre-save: https://orcd.co/numenpresave

Format
Digital download
CD Digipak w/mediabook
Black Vinyl (Gatefold)
Coloured Vinyl (Gatefold)

Links
https://alkaloid-band.com/
https://www.facebook.com/alkaloid.metal
https://twitter.com/AlkaloidBand
https://www.youtube.com/c/Alkaloidbandmetal
https://alkaloid-band.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KMQDFaAsPEKcqKzdvkYKc

For more on Season of Mist, visit our official WEBSITE, FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, YOUTUBE, and TWITTER