Alkaloid Archives - Page 2 of 3

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MOREAN ON LYRICS, WITH A FOCUS ON THE NEW ALKALOID ALBUM “LIQUID ANATOMY”

Mar 212018

(With a bow toward the Waxing Lyrical series begun by Andy Synn at our site, Karina Noctum posed questions to Morean of Alkaloid (and Dark Fortress) about his creation of lyrics for the ravishing new Alkaloid album, Liquid Anatomy, which will be released by Season of Mist on May 18th. The answers are fascinating.)

Alkaloid are going to release their latest album called Liquid Anatomy on the 18th of May, and I took this opportunity to ask about the lyrics. Musically, we know already it is going to be a remarkable album because the band counts among its members such metal luminaries as Hannes Grossmann, Christian Münzner (Obscura), Danny Tunker (Aborted, Prostitute Disfigurement, God Dethroned), and Morean (Dark Fortress, Alkaloid, Noneuclid).

Morean is not only a versatile vocalist, but also an excellent guitarist and a classical composer. His hymn to the city of Rotterdam was performed by the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest not so long ago. If you are interested in classical music then I recommend you check his double guitar composition Schattenspiel.

We have Morean’s opening insights into his writing of lyrics and choice of themes, and that’s then followed by a more detailed dialogue. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD BY DGR (PART 2 OF 3): INFERI, ALKALOID, VALE OF PNATH, IHSAHN

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Mar 052018

(This is the second part of DGR’s round-up of selected new songs and videos that appeared over the last couple of weeks. You can find Part 1 here.)

Inferi – Behold The Bearer Of Light

Right now, the hyperspeed tech-death, melodic-death, black-death, everything-kitchen-sink-and-broken-down-freezer-in-the-backyard metal crew of Inferi are out on the road, touring with Aethere, Alterbeast, and Grindmother as part of Alterbeast’s Feast album release tour. It’s been four years since the group’s last incredibly packed album The Path Of Apotheosis, but those moments of silence shall soon wane as the group have an upcoming April 21st release in the form of Revenant. Continue reading »

WELCOME TO LOVECRAFT COUNTRY…

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 9 Responses »

Mar 162017

“Cthulhu” by François Baranger

(To commemorate the anniversary of H.P. Lovecraft’s death, Andy Synn has assembled a playlist of great tracks inspired by the great man.)

The influence that the work of H. P. Lovecraft has had upon the Metal scene can’t be understated, with everyone from Metallica to Morbid Angel taking lyrical (and musical) inspiration from his work.

Now yesterday just so happened to be the eightieth anniversary of Lovecraft’s death and, in true NCS fashion… we completely failed to acknowledge it.

However, it’s never too late to jump on the bandwagon, and what is dead can never truly die, so here are a bunch of songs/albums which pay tribute to the author’s lasting legacy of eldritch, inhuman horror. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4)

MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015 8 Responses »

Dec 272015

We have arrived at the fourth installment of our 2015 list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Like the first three, this one includes three songs. All three of these are types of death metal, but certainly not the same type. It’s also kind of hard even to slap a genre label on any of them individually, other than the broad one to which I just alluded.

If you’re new to this evolving list, go HERE to see the songs we’ve already named to it and to learn what we mean by “most infectious”.

ALKALOID

The debut album of this German “super-group” drew a lot of attention from us this year, including a premiere of the song I’m now adding to this list. culminating with my comrade Andy Synn naming The Malkouth Grimoire both to his list of the year’s “Great Albums” (here) and to his list of the year’s “Critical Top 10” (here) — anointing it “the No. 1, ‘best of the best’ album of 2015” and lauding its “sheer creativity, mind-blowing instrumental prowess, ball-busting heaviness, and esoteric, progressive melodies”. Continue reading »

AN INTERVIEW WITH MOREAN — PART 3: ALKALOID

Interviews 3 Responses »

Jul 162015

Photos accompanying this interview by Christian Martin Weiss

(Andy Synn had the chance to interview the Dutch artist Morean about the three bands in which he is currently involved — Dark Fortress, Noneuclid, and Alkaloid. We’ve divided the interview into three parts, which will appear on three successive days. Today’s focus is Alkaloid. Check out Part 1 here and Part 2 here.)

All jokes aside, all three of the bands discussed in this interview have a certain “Progressive” edge to them (though I’m trying not to over-use that word if at all possible) – Dark Fortress are a Black Metal band, and Noneuclid tend (at least in my mind) towards the Thrash-y end of the Metal spectrum. However your latest band, Alkaloid, is probably the most Progressive AND the most Death Metal focussed group of the lot. Was this something you were always aiming for?

M: You put your finger right on it. Not everyone in Dark Fortress and Noneuclid is equally into Death Metal and shred orgies. And despite all the artistic freedom we take in those bands, there were quite some things Alkaloid wanted to do that would never have fit with the other bands, and I think the same is true for Obscura. So we wanted to give it one last shot to start something fresh from the beginning, where we have complete freedom to do what we want without having to fit our ideas into 10 or 20 year old band concepts – even if they’re our own. In my own artistic development, I feel that with Alkaloid many things that have been growing in the other bands finally are falling into place. And the personnel in Alkaloid [Linus Klausenitzer, Danny Tunker, Hannes Grossmann, Christian Münzner] are very inspiring, there are very few limits to how far the composers in the band can go. It’ll be exciting to see where this band will end up going in the future. Continue reading »

AN INTERVIEW WITH MOREAN — PART 2: NONEUCLID

Interviews 4 Responses »

Jul 152015

(Andy Synn had the chance to interview the Dutch artist Morean about the three bands in which he is currently involved — Dark Fortress, Noneuclid, and Alkaloid. We’ve divided the interview into three parts, which will appear on three successive days. Today’s focus is Noneuclid. Check out Part 1 here and Part 3 here.)

Moving on to talk about your work in Noneuclid, which also includes your Dark Fortress band-mates Seraph and V. Santura, along with Linus from Obscura/Alkaloid, and recently departed vocalist Bruce. For those unfamiliar with the band, can you give us some background on the group?

M: We started as a group of friends playing covers together once a year. I had just graduated from the conservatory and was looking for an outlet for my metal-related ideas, and we had way too much fun playing together, so after a while we decided to make Noneuclid a more permanent outfit. That was back in 2004. I set out to write the first album with just the wish in mind to have a few songs to play; little did we suspect they’d be perceived as being this unusual. To us, it was just metal to begin with, but then things went off on a pretty wild tangent with everything that ensued in the years after. Continue reading »

AN INTERVIEW WITH MOREAN — PART 1: DARK FORTRESS

Interviews 8 Responses »

Jul 142015

(Andy Synn had the chance to interview the Dutch artist Morean about the three bands in which he is currently involved — Dark Fortress, Noneuclid, and Alkaloid. We’ve divided the interview into three parts, which will appear on three successive days. Today’s focus is Dark Fortress. Check out the next two parts here and here.)

So, first of all, I just want to say thank you for agreeing to answer these questions for me/us. Both Venereal Dawn and Metatheosis were amongst my favourite albums from last year, and it’s looking very likely that The Malkuth Grimoire will end up in my top ten at the end of 2015 too.

Now, obviously I’m a big fan of all the bands you’re involved in, so this is probably going to be a pretty long and in-depth interview, but let’s start with a simple question… how the hell do you find the time for all of this?

Morean: Thanks for the compliments! How do I find time? Well – I don’t. I have to steal whatever time I put into one band, commission, or project from all the other bands and projects. It’s a problem almost everyone in all these bands has, and it’s getting worse. It’s also the reason why it takes years sometimes before a band is able to get into the studio or back on the road. Continue reading »

STREAM ALKALOID’S NEW ALBUM: “THE MALKUTH GRIMOIRE”

Metal News 6 Responses »

Mar 162015

If you’ve been paying attention to our persistent frothing at the mouth over the forthcoming album by “super-group” Alkaloid, or if you only happened to catch our premiere of the title track from The Malkuth Grimoire, then we have some very good news for you. And if the band’s name is still one you haven’t yet come across, look at the line-up, and then we’ll give you the news:

Morean (Dark Fortress, Noneuclid) – Vocals, Guitars
Christian Muenzner (Spawn of Possession, Ex-Obscura, Ex-Necrophagist) – Guitars
Danny Tunker (Aborted, Ex-God Dethroned) – Guitars
Linus Klausenitzer (Obscura, Noneuclid) – Bass
Hannes Grossmann (Blotted Science, Ex-Obscura, Ex-Necrophagist) – Drums

And the news is that the entire album can be streamed in its entirety as of today. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALKALOID — “THE MALKUTH GRIMOIRE”

Premieres 11 Responses »

Mar 092015

We discovered the existence of Alkaloid quite by accident last July after learning of the departure of Christian Muenzer and Hannes Grossman from German technical death metal overlords Obscura, and wrote about them at a time when not much information had been publicized — but what was known was certainly enticing. In the months since then, the reasons for excitement have only grown. This supergroup’s debut album The Malkuth Grimoire is now set for release on March 17 — and today we bring you the premiere of its title track.

The word “supergroup” is overused, but it’s entirely justified in the case of Alkaloid. The band’s members have histories with an impressive list of groups: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST, ALKALOID, THULCANDRA, MANILLA ROAD, WERESQUATCH, AND A VIKING CHANT

Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Dec 132014

Happy hangover day, aka Saturday. I myself do not have a hangover, though not for lack of trying to sew the seeds for one last night. I can’t really explain the good fortune, but I’ll take it. Having a relatively clear head this morning, I did a bit of catching up on metal news and song premieres and randomly selected the following items for your entertainment and edification. Most of these items include eye-catching artwork, too.

CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST

This first piece of news sure caught me by surprise yesterday. It appears that the organizers of the Maryland Deathfest have decided to franchise their operation. They’ve announced a three-day event named California Deathfest that will take place from October 9-11, 2015, at the Oakland Metro Operahouse in Oakland, California. The show on Friday, October 9, will feature grind, punk, and hardcore bands, and the shows on October 10 and 11 will feature death, black, and doom metal bands.

Unlike MDF, there will only be one stage, in a club setting, though if this first California Deathfest proves to be a success I’m guessing it will grow — and given the stellar line-up for this debut event, it will surely succeed. Continue reading »

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