Numen is ALKALOID’s third album and it’s got some of the band’s most intricate, thought-provoking and batshit insane ideas yet. The album is narrated from the god-like perspective of an ancient alien, who can reshape the entire galaxy with its demonic grunts.

ALKALOID are still bonded together by their love of death metal. After all, this is a supergroup assembled from foundational members of OBSCURA, DARK FORTRESS and SPAWN OF POSESSION. The fiery, finger-tapped solo that squiggles loose about halfway through “Clusterfuck” is crushed like an ant beneath a Drop D mallet storm.

But Numen finds the Bavarian band playing around with all kinds of genre experiments. “The Cambrian Explosion” flips tech-death on its horned head with seductive flurries of jazz and flamenco. ALKALOID are metal’s mad scientists. With Numen, they’ve concocted another wildly explosive batch of progressive death metal. FFO: OBSCURA, BEYOND CREATION, FRACTAL UNIVERSE