Review: Alkaloid - Liquid Anatomy

Release Date: May 18th, 2018
Label: Season of Mist
Album Link:


     Progressive Metal is in dire need of a renaissance, the new wave of Djent bands and Math Rock bands who label themselves or equally are labelled by others as Progressive Metal are a largely sanitised group of bands which end up being interchangeable with one another. There are anomalies within these genres, such as Animals as Leaders, who have transcended genre classification in their four album existence, and other bands like Tesseract and Uneven Structure who have perfected a good albeit simple sound that has spawned many plagiarisers. 

     While Opeth, forever my favourite band, have drifted gracefully away from the Progressive Death Metal which built their career and fanbase and now exist in a sort of nostalgic Progressive Rock vacuum alongside Ghost and The Sword, they still inspire many today. Among this number are Alkaloid, a "Progressive Metal Supergroup" consisting of members of various bands from Europe, mostly Germany. Alkaloid are a group of supremely talented musicians who coalesce very well with each other, and on Liquid Anatomy they evolve further than on their debut album The Malkuth Grimoire and now draw on such varied influences as Rush, Yes, Cynic, Tool, and Gorguts.


     Liquid Anatomy is a very heavy album for Progressive Death Metal, usually within this subgenre the artist will usually adhere more to the "Progressive" label than... well... the "Death" one, but Alkaloid have really crafted a set of very memorable heavy tracks varied enough to contain lyrics about being enraptured by Cthulhu, singing praises of the fictional realm of Azagthoth, and just generally growling and singing about cephalopods. There are tracks here that just exude the attitude of straight Death Metal, such as "As Decreed By Laws Unwritten" which is sure to make any crowd a hazard at one of their live shows. Starting off the track with fast double kick drums wouldn't usually be seen in a normal Prog Metal track today, but then again Alkaloid seem to possess the bravado of a band who knows they are a step above the rest. The opening guitar riff lasts a good 45 seconds before repeating which is a creative feat in itself.

    Par for the course in a Progressive labelled album, there are often breaks of peace amidst the chaos. "Liquid Anatomy" is a pensive track reminiscent of Opeth, and that is always a good thing for me. Starting off the track with some very layered acoustics sets the mood for one of the more low key tracks on the album. Vocalist/Lead Guitarist/Actual Genius* Morean has some nice clean vocals here. His voice is a husky combo of Geddy Lee of obvious Rush fame and Mark Hollis of Talk Talk, and he has this odd talent of going to a very low vocal register almost comparable to Mongolian throat signing. This singing style is a refreshing take on most modern Progressive bands, who often end up comparable to pop-punk  in terms of sound (ahem, Periphery). 

*Morean is a classically trained composer who has received multiple accolades for his contributions to modern classical music

     The production on this album is very clean and precise, but the guitars, drums, and thankfully audible bass have enough punch and edge to their tones that it still sounds natural. The guitarwork on this album is very interesting and diverse, I could just as easily say the guitars sound like Gorguts in their dissonance at times, Cynic in their melody and unity at times, and Def Leppard for the very frequent use of reverb drenched Classic Rock guitar solos, often before plunging into a chaotic sea of growls and kick drums, just as heard on "Kernel Panic" the first and possibly one of m favourite songs on the album, it is a short(ish) healthy mix of heaviness, classic rock and progressive rock influence. 

     However, to say that "Kernel Panic" is the best song on the album would be doing a disservice to the epic in length and volume "Chaos Theory and Practice". How the band started this song baffles me, immediately the eardrums are assaulted by a nauseating maelstrom of noise. As the intro moves onward, you end up realising that everyone ACTUALLY knows what they're doing and is performing a very syncopated ritual of insanity. I would absolutely love to see this song played live, due to the indecisiveness of it's mood. It moves every which way that can be imagined, but always managed to be reeled back into a controlled engine of war, this is evidenced throughout the entirety of the fourth minute of the song.

      Very often Progressive Metal can be seen as derivative if it takes influence from other music, because the point of the genre "which is toxicly governed by very odd fans" is to be totally and completely original, but Alkaloid have proved that you can take influence from many types of music and create something entirely unique and special and that is what they have done here with "Liquid Anatomy". The fact that I have mentioned a vast array of other musicians in my attempt to describe their sound is only a credit to their creativity and uniqueness in the sphere of Progressive Metal. 
Alkaloid hopefully will pave the way for the renaissance I mentioned in the first line of this review, the inevitable success of this very creative album will quite possibly start something and that's all this nerd can hope for.

9/10


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