Imperial Triumphant : " Alphaville"

Once again number Colin Marston of Krallice among their collaborators as well as more main stream names from the progressive metal community Trey from Mr. Bungle and drummer Tomas Haake from Meshuggah. The angular labyrinth of winding jazz infused riffs and circular drumming that makes the song hypnotically spin. If you did not figure out on the first song, the second one makes it perfectly clear this is not a black metal album. The bass drives the second song more. There is more dissonance to the weird mathmatics they throw at you/. Some of the choice to be weird work better than others, the precussive break in "City Swine" kills the songs helter skelter momentum. They do finds some blast beats for a few moments after this. They jazzy piano flourishes are the most worthwhile part of this song.

The growled and screamed vocals on "Atomic Age" remind you this is a metal band not a math rock band despite evidence your ears might try to tell you other wise. I think Sigh made a better argument for this. These guys use more chaos and dissonance. I like that it is sonically intense. I do not think in terms of song writing they have stepped forward , but have opted to be more experimental. I appreciate this though I am not sure this will take up the time I normally spend listening to Igorrr who fills the weird void for me more often than not. "Transmisson to Mercury"  blends more boozy jazzy into things, which is far from the first time this has been done in metal so I am not sure what all the fuss is about . It is more of a sound than a song, but the sound is sonically pleasing to me so that gives them more slack, but I am by no means blown away by this.

The title track just kind of falls out of the previous song. The choas eventually is run through a more conventional metal filter. The actually find a groove on this one before wandering off into more proggy moments. By the time we get to " the Greater Good" the novelty of weird has begun to wear off. They did milk it for mileage well. Then they include two cover the first being Voivod's "Experiment" . Musically it's ok , but the vocals are growled and terrible. The cover of "Happy Home" is equally obtuse.  These guys are great musicans , this is a step further into prog, I will give this album an 8, not likely to make any of my end of the year lists, but likely to be on those that are trying to look cool.