Alkaloid - The Malkuth Grimoire (Prog Metal)

[ArtHam]

Maybe not? I saw on the Alkaloid Facebook that more people already have it, seems like more preorders were sent out early.

 

[takotakumi]

Maybe not? I saw on the Alkaloid Facebook that more people already have it, seems like more preorders were sent out early.

Europe people
Also I was dumb and did not pre-order it
Mainly cause my laptop does not have a cd drive hahaha
I could've used the one from work though...

 

[ArtHam]

Well...hopefully the label will stream it soon then.

 

[Tech Wrath]

Season of Mist always release an album stream but it probably won't be until the official release day /:

At least I'll be getting at least one good birthday present

 

[ArtHam]

Just finished round 2 and 3.

Starting to feel they've definitely outclassed Malkuth Grimoire. This feels more extreme, stranger in places but also so much more competent and focused. Rise of the Cephalopods is a monster. The overall production is better than on Malkuth Grimoire. The bass is mixed better and everybody is playing better. The rhythm guitar work is as impressive as the solos. At the moment I think the best songs are As Decreed By Laws Unwritten, Rise of the Cephalopods and In Turmoil's Swirling Reaches. Almost all tracks are insanely proggy and filled with odd-time meters so I'm even happier there's a song like As Decreed By Laws Unwritten that's mostly designed to bang like a maniac and I love it more than I already did.

 

[takotakumi]

Just finished round 2 and 3.

Starting to feel they've definitely outclassed Malkuth Grimoire. This feels more extreme, stranger in places but also so much more competent and focused. Rise of the Cephalopods is a monster. The overall production is better than on Malkuth Grimoire. The bass is mixed better and everybody is playing better. The rhythm guitar work is as impressive as the solos. At the moment I think the best songs are As Decreed By Laws Unwritten, Rise of the Cephalopods and In Turmoil's Swirling Reaches. Almost all tracks are insanely proggy and filled with odd-time meters so I'm even happier there's a song like As Decreed By Laws Unwritten that's mostly designed to bang like a maniac and I love it more than I already did.

IM DYING TO LISTEN TO RISE OF THE CEPHALOPODS AAAAAAAA

Also, I'm happy that the bass is more listenable this time
Malkuth Grimoire had some very good bass lines, like for example Hadron Machinist. If it wasn't for Linus's playthrough I would have not found out how great his lines were.
On that sense Akroasis and Malkuth were quite opposite, with bass been buried in the mix on malkuth and outstanding on the mix on Akroasis. I wish it would have been that way.

 

[ArtHam]

Agreed, for that the guitars on Akroasis were a lot thinner, less beefy. Both albums were mixed by the same guy. Also there's no clean singing with Obscura, so I guess you lose some while gaining another. And creating a spot in the mix for all 3 guitarists must be difficult too.

 

[ArtHam]

If it's cool bass lines you're after you'll love In Turmoil's Swirling Reaches. That's where Linus shines.

 

[takotakumi]

Agreed, for that the guitars on Akroasis were a lot thinner, less beefy. Both albums were mixed by the same guy. Also there's no clean singing with Obscura, so I guess you lose some while gaining another. And creating a spot in the mix for all 3 guitarists must be difficult too.

Agreed, it was probably due to the mix involving multiple instruments and having to sacrifice the bass in there :/
I had previously discussed this with another mixing friend and he commented the same.
I hate him cause he knows Morean as a friend and has tried his custom BC Rich and even had dinner with Morean haha
He also recently visited Victor's Wood Shed Studio last month

 

[ArtHam]

Wow....hopefully I can do that someday. I only had some Skype lessons with Christian and Danny. Though that was cool too. It's funny how that came about because anytime I asked Christian about a part I loved he'd say: oh that wasn't me, that was Danny. And I'd never heard of him before. I was a bit skeptical when Christian said Danny is the best player he has ever heard, maybe he was just being nice. But then I saw Danny play the Hail Satan solo in one of the lessons and pretty much wanted to quit. He also did some Holdsworth stuff and showed me Spawn of Possession and gypsy jazz style things. Asked him to listen to something by Beyond Creation I wanted to learn and he listened maybe 2 times and just took his guitar and played it. Don't know how. I've been trying to schedule lessons with him again but his schedule seems to be full. Bummer. Though at least he still replies when I write him and ask something.

Now I know his style I can hear who plays what on the new album and it seems Danny plays the most solos. The coolest Christian solo was on Azagthoth, that was great. He also does a melody type thing on the outro of Cephalopods which is beautiful.

 

[Necropitated]

Wow....hopefully I can do that someday. I only had some Skype lessons with Christian and Danny. Though that was cool too. It's funny how that came about because anytime I asked Christian about a part I loved he'd say: oh that wasn't me, that was Danny. And I'd never heard of him before. I was a bit skeptical when Christian said Danny is the best player he has ever heard, maybe he was just being nice. But then I saw Danny play the Hail Satan solo in one of the lessons and pretty much wanted to quit. He also did some Holdsworth stuff and showed me Spawn of Possession and gypsy jazz style things. Asked him to listen to something by Beyond Creation I wanted to learn and he listened maybe 2 times and just took his guitar and played it. Don't know how. I've been trying to schedule lessons with him again but his schedule seems to be full. Bummer. Though at least he still replies when I write him and ask something.

Now I know his style I can hear who plays what on the new album and it seems Danny plays the most solos. The coolest Christian solo was on Azagthoth, that was great. He also does a melody type thing on the outro of Cephalopods which is beautiful.

Danny has perfect pitch, that's one of the reasons he's so quick at it, apart from being a great guitar player. He's really nice. One day he just wrote to me because he got an axe fx and we just chatted about that. Sent me a nice impulse response from Devin Townsend that's still my favorite ever since I stopped playing an axe fx.

 

[ArtHam]

I loved reading that. It somehow always makes a band even cooler when you find out the people in it are also cool people.

On the other hand I've now listened to the album 4 more times and will continue to for a long time I'm sure. What an amazing, stunning, diverse piece of art this is. All the small issues I had with the Malkuth Grimoire (production, too many songs and some don't work as well as others) are gone. Even the songs I didn't like as much namely Azagthoth and the middle part for Chaos Theory and Practice work so well in this running order. This album for me makes the case that the album format is not dead by a long shot. And it's been a long time since I thought that.

 

[ArtHam]

Listened to the album all weekend except when I listen to the new Ihsahn which I don't like a lot so far and again all day today. It's safe to say Rivers of Nihil, my previous favorite album so far this year has been relegated to second place. Honestly not even afraid I'm hyping this up too much. It's a game changer for me. Even if something else comes along this year that I'll end up liking more personally I'm sure nothing will come along that's this unique, fresh and groundbreaking.

 

[takotakumi]

Full Stream by season of mist as of now

 

[takotakumi]

I was able to listen to album a couple of days ago and yes mt AOTY prediction still holds haha
Quick thoughts:
As a whole I slightly prefer Malkuth Grimoire and I feel it's more "complete" in the sense
that it feels slightly more diverse having morean songs, hannes songs, Chris songs, and something in between.
To me personally, this new album is phenomenal but I missed the lack of Muenzer style songs. His solos are out of this world though.

Having said that, as of now I believe Rise of the Cephalopods is my new favorite Alkaloid and Hannes song ever.
It's 19 minutes long but every part is perfect and I do not get bored. Pristine and ominous cleans, signature agrresive Hannes tech riffs,
hard grooves, perfect transitions, favorite morean lyrics, and my favorite solos as well (ignoring my favorite intro azagthoth solo").
For those who are curios, this is funeral for a continent part 2, as it follows what happens after the ice melts.
After this song, my favorites are Azagthoth and the dyson spheres.

This album would be perfect but I have not been able to enjoy As Decreed and the title track Liquid Anatomy as I do with the rest of the songs.
As decreed feels overly long for me and Liquid Anatomy is somewhat dissapointing as a title track, but who knows if it grows on me later haha

 

[ArtHam]

So funny, but I couldn't disagree with you more. Which is fine. How you can say As Decreed is too long where it only has killer parts but then rave on Cephalopods where literally nothing happens for the first 4 minutes en 2 minutes in the middle is beyond me. I think I'm more in line with this review: http://www.itdjents.com/reviews-2/review-alkaloid-liquid-anatomy/ though obviously I feel a 6 is way too low.
The reviewer almost hates this album, but the Morean tracks and Cephalopods in particular. Obviously I don't agree with that part, but I do feel Cephalopods is just long to be a long song. For me there's no reason why the intro should be almost as long as the entire Azagthoth song.

Once again shows how this band divides their fanbase. I felt Malkuth Grimoire had too much filler, was too long and the songwriting of Hannes and Christian is way too similar, hence lacking diversity. The Christian songs could be on Hannes albums and vice versa. Something tells me you have too much of a hard on for Christian and Hannes to hear how similar their writing often is when they write tech stuff. Though you dislike the title track which was written by Hannes and which he said was his favorite. I don't mean this as an attack obviously as we both love this band but for obviously different reasons. Malkuth for me had songs by three different writers but lacked cohesion -I struggle to find where you hear the in between things-, Liquid Anatomy has songs by 3 different writers and one song where they obviously collaborated making for one of the strongest songs 'In Turmoil's Swirling Reaches'.

So the way I would but both albums against each other is:

Kernel Panic is a better Carbon Phrases
As Decreed is a better Malkuth Grimoire
Azagthoth is about as good as Cthulhu
Liquid Anatomy is a better Organism
In Turmoil's Swirling Reaches is completely different than anything they've done so far.
The Dyson songs on this are more focused than the Dyson songs on Malkuth
Cephalopods is in its strong parts better than Funeral, but is just too long.

I really think LA is a stronger album than Malkuth. It may look like I dislike Malkuth but I love that one too. All IMHO of course, lest people get upset.

 

[takotakumi]

So funny, but I couldn't disagree with you more. Which is fine. How you can say As Decreed is too long where it only has killer parts but then rave on Cephalopods where literally nothing happens for the first 4 minutes en 2 minutes in the middle is beyond me. I think I'm more in line with this review: http://www.itdjents.com/reviews-2/review-alkaloid-liquid-anatomy/ though obviously I feel a 6 is way too low.
The reviewer almost hates this album, but the Morean tracks and Cephalopods in particular. Obviously I don't agree with that part, but I do feel Cephalopods is just long to be a long song. For me there's no reason why the intro should be almost as long as the entire Azagthoth song.

Once again shows how this band divides their fanbase. I felt Malkuth Grimoire had too much filler, was too long and the songwriting of Hannes and Christian is way too similar, hence lacking diversity. The Christian songs could be on Hannes albums and vice versa. Something tells me you have too much of a hard on for Christian and Hannes to hear how similar their writing often is when they write tech stuff. Though you dislike the title track which was written by Hannes and which he said was his favorite. I don't mean this as an attack obviously as we both love this band but for obviously different reasons. Malkuth for me had songs by three different writers but lacked cohesion -I struggle to find where you hear the in between things-, Liquid Anatomy has songs by 3 different writers and one song where they obviously collaborated making for one of the strongest songs 'In Turmoil's Swirling Reaches'.

So the way I would but both albums against each other is:

Kernel Panic is a better Carbon Phrases
As Decreed is a better Malkuth Grimoire
Azagthoth is about as good as Cthulhu
Liquid Anatomy is a better Organism
In Turmoil's Swirling Reaches is completely different than anything they've done so far.
The Dyson songs on this are more focused than the Dyson songs on Malkuth
Cephalopods is in its strong parts better than Funeral, but is just too long.

I really think LA is a stronger album than Malkuth. It may look like I dislike Malkuth but I love that one too. All IMHO of course, lest people get upset.

Yeah man, we're quite polar opposites on some points haha
It's interesting to see how different elements of the album have same or opposite reactions to different people
For instance I know some people don't enjoy the "slow token Morbid Angel" songs that always come with a Hannes release,
but that's another topic for another day I guess
And no, I don't feel attacked or anything, we're having a good old album discussion

I disagree with your statement about the Chris vs Hannes approach to them writing tech. While both have somewhat
absorbed each other's traits by working closely over the years, at least to me, its evident when a track is a "chris" or a "hannes"
from miles away.

On your comparisons:
*Yes! Carbon was cool but I felt like Kernel was a better condensed version of that
*No! haha so wrong to me, both groove hard and while it seems I talk shit about of As Decreed, the intro is one of my favorites and that's the only part where I would is better than malkuth hehe the rest just blows it away imo
*Agreed. Can't get enough of either songs. Cthulhu is easily on my top 5 songs ever
*My friends were saying this exact quote but me personally can't find them the "same"
*I really enjoy this one, probably the "happiest" , loved the "everyone solos" part plus we need more "Linus shines" moments
*mmm more focused in what sense? I love all dyson songs equally
*bessssstt alkaloid soonng

 

[ArtHam]

Yeah it's fun! Just want to make sure all's cool.

Yes, Hannes albums are a different discussion. I for one loathe the first one and absolutely adore the second one. And I love the slower songs on his albums, though I'm not in love with his lyrics most of the time.

Of course there is a difference in writing style, but they're still close together. The differences are mostly superficial. That's why Danny's songs stand out to me more because his style is completely different from Hannes and Morean. So they add more diversity than Christian's songs did on Malkuth. As Hannes said before he regretted including the Obscura sounding songs on Malkuth because it painted them into the tech death scene which they really wanted to escape.

I'm convinced if there weren't something as aggressive as As Decreed on here the album would as a whole be very tame. Also I don't really get why you're only mentioning Christian's solos as they really aren't anything special on this album for me. With the exception being Azagthoth, which still sounds like Christian, but with an added element. Of course I love him as a player, but of the three I think his playing is the least remarkable on this album with Danny completely stealing the spotlight with beautiful quiet playing on the title track, insanely fast on As Decreed and the last thing on the first solo of cephalopods, epic on Chaos Theory, super clean and original on Kernel Panic.
What I do agree on is more Linus.

And what excites me more than anything is that this album feels more like a band album, where Malkuth felt more like they're throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks.

 

[takotakumi]

Forgot to share this, my friend Eetu covered the last Chris solo in Rise

 

[ArtHam]

Very cool. Also nice that Danny commented. What a guy!