alkaloid band tour

Alkaloid Verified

Concerts and tour dates, latest post.

Bandsintown Merch

Fan Reviews

Fans Also Follow

About alkaloid.

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ALKALOID (HANNES GROSSMANN)

(Delays of various kinds make this interview of Hannes Grossmann by Comrade Aleks later in coming than we would have liked, but it’s better late than never, as we hope you will agree!)

This interview was started by email in October 2023 or so, and why do we publish it now? Because things happen not as planned, and it took too much time to finish it, though even that didn’t help much, so I feel it is incomplete. And I bet that you already heard Alkaloid ’s third album Numen , which was released by Season of Mist last September, so what else to add?

However, it was good to get a response from Hannes Grossmann , Alkaloid ’s drummer and a super-busy musician who’s involved in a few more bands and projects. You can listen to some of Numen ’ s songs while you read the text. I think that it won’t take much time.

Hi Hannes! How are you doing? Your new album Numen was released on September 15th, and please accept my sincere congratulations. What’s going on in Alkaloid’s camp?

Thank you very much. We’re really happy about how the album is being received so far. Seems like a major step forward for us.

It’s said that you formed Alkaloid after parting ways with Obscura and wanting to form a common band with Morean. What was your vision of Alkaloid from the start? What did you want to express through this band?

I wanted to make metal without any stylistic boundaries and a real musical home where I can do whatever I want. Then another idea was to form a band with friends I love to hang out with. Both things worked nicely with Alkaloid .

Now there are four members in Alkaloid, and each of you is an experienced musician with a great background. How do you work on the songs together? Is it a democratic project?

In the songwriting we deliver songs individually and then everyone works on his own part. The final say is the composer of a song. So it is democratic but with someone leading the way. For example the song “Clusterfuck” was written by me, so I get final say about vocal lines. The other way around, “Numen” was composed by Morean , so he can veto drum ideas of mine.

Morean said in one of his recent interviews that you all strive to not repeat yourselves with each album. Where’s Alkaloid’s identity? How do you see the integral elements of your music?

Our musical identity is defined by the people who play in the band. It’s that simple.

Your music is complex and multilayered, and your tendency toward experiments and new forms is well known. And Numen is another example of your creative approach. How do you decide that the album is complete in this situation? How do you know when to stop?

We just know somehow. It’s a gut feeling. Same goes for individual songs. They are finished whenever they feel finished. There’s no formula for that. For an album it also depends on the number of songs written. Ideally we try to get all songs on an album, we don’t wanna keep songs to ourselves.

Numen turned out to be a double album, so it was split into two parts. Was it part of your plan from the start, or was it just an accident? Did you discuss if it’s possible to leave some songs for another release?

No, it was clear to us that all these songs must be on the album. Our label boss Michael suggested to split it onto two discs. It would have been a double vinyl anyway, but he said that even on CD it would make sense artistically to have a conscious break, since the material is so demanding. We agreed to that idea.

Occasionally I found the band’s video on the Dutch TV show Top 2000 a Gogo . It was interesting to see the band in such atypical surroundings. How did you get there? And did it help you spread your influence a bit?

Morean is an established classical composer in Holland, so he had some connections. It was really fun to do that. We love to play on special occasions. Like the music not being the typical metal, we as a band also don’t want to just provide standard performances. So expect more things like this from us in the future.

You play not only drums but also guitar in your solo project. How often does your inner guitarist argue with colleagues in other bands?

Actually never. I’m lucky to play with some of the best guitarists in metal, so if anything I want to do justice to the other guy’s parts with my drumming. It helps that I can play the guitar, so I can understand what they’re doing and thus create drum lines which fit the composition best.

You perform technical, progressive music, and Numen is another example. Well, it assumes your own progression as well. Did you think about the top level of your skills? What’s your ambitions as a musician?

I tend to move away from the so called “technical” death metal, because I think that the sub-genre itself has become very narrow. As a drummer there are certain things that are expected, such as super fast double bass. And I find it very boring if a stylistic element is chosen not because it’s exciting and the best choice, but because “it’s what it’s supposed to sound like”. No thanks!

You’re an extra-productive musician and you’re involved in eight active bands or so. It seems that you should have a tight schedule and obtain some self-discipline. How do you manage to deal with it all?

I’m involved in two bands, which are Triptykon and Alkaloid . All other projects are just studio session jobs. Mixing, mastering, but also session work is my job, so I make enough time for that. Recently I get more and more into mixing, which is my favorite work these days – as you hopefully can hear on Numen .

You own Mordor Sound Studios and you have proper experience recording other bands besides your own. What was the most difficult recording session you experienced? How stressful is your job?

Well, the most difficult stuff is my own material and also Alkaloid , haha. I think it’s because it’s my own songs, so I tend to be over-analytical. The job itself is only stressful if you make it so yourself. Actually mixing and recording can be a lot of fun. You need some experience finding out which types of jobs or clients burn you out. Then avoid these, even if it means financial loss. That’s only temporary anyway.

All of you are adults and busy gentlemen, so I wasn’t surprised when I found no tour dates on Alkaloid’s Facebook. What about this aspect? Wouldn’t you like to spread your gospel live? Is it technically possible?

Yes, we are working on gigs and have confirmed a few already for next year. So get ready to see Alkaloid on stages around the globe in 2024.

https://www.facebook.com/alkaloid.metal

https://alkaloid-band.com/

https://alkaloidsom.bandcamp.com/album/numen

https://alkaloid-band.bandcamp.com/album/the-malkuth-grimoire

  One Response to “AN NCS INTERVIEW: ALKALOID (HANNES GROSSMANN)”

Nice to see an interview with Hannes. Better late than never. I love this band, and the new album is very good, but to be honest I feel like there were some very questionable choices on Numen that bring some songs crashing down. For example, the gang-chorus on The Cambrian Explosion is horribly out of tune, and out of place, and annoying.

  Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your Comment

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Name (required)

E-mail (required)

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Don't subscribe All new comments Replies to my comments Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• Old GR site

• Album Reviews

Best of Month

• HALL OF FAME
• BEST OF YEAR

Alkaloid to release new studio album “Numen” on September 15th 2023

Alkaloid are mad scientists. With each album, the extreme metal concocters have poked and prodded at mysterious phenomena both of this world and far beyond. They’ve written a song about what lies beneath the Antarctic crust, as well as an ongoing saga about a galactic civilization that ascends to a god-like-level of domination.

Now, after five years, Alkaloid are back with their third full-length, “Numen”, and it’s got some of their most intricate, thought-provoking and batshit insane ideas yet. Numen is a 70-minute monolith of an album that doesn’t just colonize interstellar space with sentient fungi and cephalopods. No; it grabs the fabric of the universe and ties it into knots to break time and space themselves. The Bavarian band plays around with all kinds of genre experiments, effortlessly flipping death metal on its horned head with seductive flurries of jazz, flamenco, rock and gospel choirs.

But Alkaloid are still bonded together by their love of extreme metal. After all, they are a supergroup made up of long-serving members of Obscura, Dark Fortress, Triptykon and other genre heavyweights. “Clusterfuck” might have a clean and catchy chorus, but even the fiery, finger-tapped solo that squiggles loose around the four-minute mark is crushed like an ant between colliding moons.

Watch the official video for “Clusterfuck” below.

Here’s what the band has to say about their new single: “It’s one of our shorter and more moderate tracks – maybe uncharacteristically so, once you see the whole album. But ‘Clusterfuck’ still covers the classic Alkaloid spectrum between groove, hooks, brutality and complexity. The lyrics address the question of why we as a species should aspire to greatness at all, when we know that in all probability, we’re going to fail anyway” .

Format: • Digital download • CD Digipak w/mediabook • Black Vinyl (Gatefold) • Coloured Vinyl (Gatefold)

“Numen” will be released on September 15th, 2023 by Season of Mist. Pre-save the album here and pre-order it here .

Disc 1: 1. Qliphosis (07:48) 2. The Cambrian Explosion (03:58) 3. Clusterfuck (06:00) 4. Shades of Shub-Niggurath (06:11) 5. A Fool’s Desire (08:10) 6. The Fungi From Yuggoth (06:06)

Disc 2: 1. The Black Siren (Instrumental) (1:39) 2. Numen (Dyson VII) (7:03) 3. Recursion (Dyson VIII) (3:29) 4. The Folding (Dyson IX) (6:54) 5. Alpha Aur (13:23)

Progressive extreme metallers Alkaloid prepare to unfurl their new many-tentacled full-length, “Numen” via Season of Mist. Featuring members of Triptykon, Obscura, Dark Fortress, and Obsidious, the Germany-based quartet of Morean (vocals, guitars, concepts), Hannes Grossmann (drums), Christian Münzner (guitars), and Linus Klausenitzer (bass) construct upon, expand away from, and journey between previous full-lengths “The Malkuth Grimoire” (2015) and “Liquid Anatomy” (2018) on “Numen”. In every respect, Alkaloid recommence the purposeful warp of various metallic genres they dimensionally blur. Tracks like the video single for “Clusterfuck”, “The Cambrian Explosion”, and “Numen” posit heavy cosmological/Lovecraftian theoretic themes on top of musically-adept songs that are accessible yet undeniably intricate.

“We’ve all been around the block a few times by now as metal musicians”, says songsmith Morean . “The feeling that we’ve outgrown the narrow niche of pure extreme metal was a main motivator to start this band in the first place, ten years ago. The ‘prog’ tag is handy for us because, per definition, it already encompasses a wider range of possible styles and influences we can get away with than any one specific metal genre. This means we could ensure from the beginning that we’ll always be able to write whatever we want, no matter how crazy our ideas become. The heart of this band is always the songwriting, and we all like complex and virtuosic music in all its diverse manifestations. However, we do share a love for death metal as the smallest common denominator in the band, and we wanted to make sure no one thinks that just because we include melodies, clean guitars, and influences from other genres, we’d automatically sacrifice the brutality and relentless esthetic of extreme metal”.

“Numen” was written during the pandemic, but it was planned long before the scourge of disease wracked humanity. As a result, the songwriting sessions were predictably not “in the room” but over the Internet after the band members had isolated and worked on their constituent parts. Demos flew back and forth. Then, Tunker left amicably for personal reasons. Alkaloid could’ve folded, but the close-knit group soldiered on. They intensely relied on the professionalism and dependability of the collective to drive “Numen” to completion. The complications of the two years it took to sonically inscribe the album into aeonic vastness didn’t fragment the end result. Instead, the process accelerated Alkaloid’s lambent, eldritch explorations. “Clusterfuck”, “The Cambrian Explosion”, “Numen”, and “A Fool’s Desire” expertly bridge the past to the future, where Alkaloid’s originative, daedal storytelling captures (and holds hostage) the imagination.

The title, “Numen”, got its start at the dawning of Alkaloid. It’s a word that Morean fell in love with immediately, and he knew it had a place in his creative endeavors. Whereas “The Malkuth Grimoire” talked about combining existing elements into new structures, and “Liquid Anatomy” dealt with the creation of new elements, “Numen” tries to look at the universe from a kind of meta-perspective from an imaginary god, as if the space that everything happens in was given a voice and a role as observer and shaper of everything that happens. In it, sentient panspermic mycelia are swathed in Lovecraftian nastiness — like Shub-Niggurath and the Fungi from Yuggoth — while the new Dyson chapters interpret the aspiration to reach divinity rather literally, reshaping the entire galaxy by manipulating spacetime itself. Desperate to escape their doom, the Cephalopods from previous songs have returned, too. “Numen” is dense but not impenetrable. In fact, from the first moments of opener, “Qliphosis”, to the final contemplation of closer “Alpha Aur”, Alkaloid prove to be more charismatic than ever.

Line-up: Morean – Guitars, vocals Christian Münzner – Guitars Linus Klausenitzer – Bass Hannes Grossmann – Drums

Alvum credits: Recording Studio: Mordor Sounds, Nürnberg, Germany. Producer: Sara Robalo Recording & mixing: Hannes Grossmann Mastering: Alan Douches at West West Side Music studio in Hudson Valley, NY.

Guest musicians: Adam Wallis, Cydney McQuillan-Grace, John Schaffer, Lauren Gill, Sara Robalo, Shannon Bedford Additional choir tracks on “The Cambrian Explosion” and “Shades of Shub-Niggurath” Former Alkaloid guitarist Danny Tunker contributed to “The Cambrian Explosion” Artwork & photos: Christian Martin Weiss

Weblinks: alkaloid-band.com www.facebook.com/alkaloid.metal

Pain Of Truth to release debut full-length album “Not Through Blood” on September 8th 2023

Lewsberg to release new studio album “out and about” on september 15th 2023, related posts.

Hail Spirit Noir to release new studio album “Fossil Gardens” on June 28th 2024

Asia announces July 2024 North American Headlining Tour

Worshipper to release new studio album “One Way Trip” on July 19th 2024

Zeal & Ardor to release new studio album “Greif” on August 23rd 2024

The Mercury Riots to release debut album “In Solstice” on June 21st 2024

Sunbomb to release new studio album “Light Up the Sky” on June 28th 2024

Jared James Nichols announces October 2023 UK Headlining Tour

Skálmöld to release new studio album “Ýdalir” on August 18th 2023

Grande rock webradio, best of 2023.

Best Albums of 2023

North Sea Echoes – Really Good Terrible Things

Final Strike – Finding Pieces

Latest interview.

Latest Gig Review

Ice Nine Kills & In This Moment live at The Rave / Eagles Club in Milwaukee, WI, 2023

Steve Harris

Grande rock spotify.

Tweets by granderockcom

© 2024 Grande Rock webzine - Rock & Metal online magazine.

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

Hi, what are you looking for?

Metal Injection

• New Albums Out This Week
• Top Tracks Of The Week
• Top Stories Of The Week
• Upcoming Releases
• Funny Stories
• Photo Gallery
• Latest Videos Listing
• Music Videos
• Metal Injection Exclusives
• Live Footage
• Funny Videos
• Slay At Home
• ASK THE ARTIST
• Kids In Metal
• Mashups & Covers
• Rockumentary
• View All Channels
• Apple Playlists
• Spotify Playlists
• Los Angeles

Morphing The Particles of Death Metal: An interview with ALKALOID Frontman Morean

Want More Metal? Subscribe To Our Daily Newsletter

Enter your information below to get a daily update with all of our headlines and receive The Orchard Metal newsletter.

Sponsored Links from Around the Internet

You may also like.

Albums Of The Month

The 10 best albums of march 2024, according to you.

A few bigger picks alongside some great underground ones!

Album Review: ABORTED Vault Of Horrors

"Ten fine features could have been traded for five amazing ones, that truly complemented the sounds and delivered extra layers."

Weekly Injection

The weekly injection: new releases from aborted, dragonforce & more out today 3/15.

Plus releases from Brat, Necrophobic, Night Verses, While She Sleeps, and Whole Gods Destroy

ARCHSPIRE Announces North American Tour With ABORTED, CARCOSA & ALLUVIAL

Starting late this May.

Latest News

Danny carey names the most challenging tool songs to perform live: "i had to seriously breathe".

SLIPKNOT May Have Revealed Their New Drummer In Some Behind-The-Scenes Coding

TILL LINDEMANN Announces First-Ever Solo North American Tour

MEGADETH Announces US Tour With MUDVAYNE & ALL THAT REMAINS

OZZY OSBOURNE To Be Inducted Into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame

OPETH Announces North American Tour

SLIPKNOT Announces One-Off Show At A Very Small Californian Venue For This Week

Alkaloid Streaming New Album Ahead of Release

Posted on September 14, 2023

More information about Numen

Alkaloid are metal’s maddest scientists. The Bavarian band have crafted songs about what lies beneath the Arctic crust, on top of an ongoing, multi-part saga about a galactic civilization that ascends to god-like levels of domination.

‘Numen’ is their most intricate, thought-provoking and batshit insane album yet. The 70-minute behemoth hits shelves and streaming platforms tomorrow, but you can listen to all eleven tracks now thanks to our friends at No Clean Singing.

Stream the whole album: https://redirect.season-of-mist.com/Stream-Numen

Pre-order: https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/alkaloid-numen

Pre-save: h ttps://orcd.co/numenpresave

Alkaloid are still bonded together by their love of extreme metal. After all, they are a super group that’s assembled from foundational members of Obscura, Dark Fortress, Triptykon and other genre heavyweights. The fiery, finger-tapped solo that squiggles loose halfway through lead single “Clusterfuck” is crushed like an ant between colliding moons.

But Numen finds the band playing around with all kinds of experiments. “The Cambrian Explosion” flips death metal on its horned head with seductive flurries of jazz and flamenco, while the title track is a dizzying seven-minute yarn of how a supermassive black hole came to burp up an unheard-of cosmic artifact that gives both the song – and the album – its name.

“We proudly present our third album ‘Numen’, says Alkaloid. “Where ‘The Malkuth Grimoire’ dealt with the rearrangement of existing particles into new forms, and ‘Liquid Anatomy’ with the creation of new particles, this album looks at the universe from the perspective of imaginary deities detached altogether from the cycle of life and death of incarnated organisms. This hypothetical viewpoint is reflected on the scales of both biological and cosmological processes. If one could shape and manipulate life and the cosmos itself, how would one go about it, and what would it mean for everything in that cosmos?

Related posts

Chat with Alkaloid About New Album on Bandcamp

Alkaloid contain more than just multitudes. Their new album ‘Numen’ compresses meteoric riffs, seductive flurries of jazz and flamenco, and a multi-part saga about a godlike galactic civilization into a dizzying, thrilling 70 minutes.

Alkaloid Rule the Metalverse on “Numen”

No one has conquered the far reaches of the metalverse quite like Alkaloid. The Bavarian band have crafted songs about what lies beneath the Arctic crust, on top of an ongoing, multi-part saga about a galactic civilization that ascends to god-like levels of domination.

Alkaloid collapse time (and genres) on “The Cambrian Explosion”

Alkaloid don’t just build worlds. They concoct whole universes.

ALKALOID announce new album with “Clusterfuck”

ALKALOID are mad scientists. With each album, the extreme metal concocters have poked and prodded at mysterious phenomena both of this world and far beyond. They’ve written a song about what lies beneath the Antarctic crust, as well as an ongoing saga about a galactic civilization that ascends to a god-like-level of domination.

ALKALOID – Liquid Anatomy – November 15, 2018

ALKALOID drummer Hannes Grossmann has unleashed a brand new play-through video for the track “In Turmoil’s Swirling Reaches”, taken from ALKALOID’s latest album ‘Liquid Anatomy’.

• Privacy Policy
• Terms and conditions
• Rotting Christ
• Septicflesh
• Death Metal / Grind
• Black Metal
• Worldwide shop
• North America shop

Alkaloid – Liquid Anatomy Review

Although I still rate The Malkuth Grimoire highly, over time its flaws proved more revealing, so I was anxious to hear if the band ironed out the issues and were able to take their technically proficient and modern combination of death, prog and spacey experimentation to the elite level they hinted at on the debut. Firstly, the high-tech sci-fi atmosphere remains intact, lending the album a very sleek, modern edge that couples well with their mysterious lyricism, multi-faceted attack and laser precision musicianship. Brainy, shreddy compositions twist and turn, as the composers chart an expansive and fluid journey, from spacey psychedelia and captivating prog passages to taut and riffy, groove-driven bouts of death. While the prog and melodic elements have been upped, Alkaloid don’t neglect their death metal roots, evidenced frequently throughout Liquid Anatomy , like the explosive, blasting frenzy towards the back-end of “Interstellar Boredom,” or the extra chunky mid-paced grooves of “As Decreed By Laws Unwritten.” The progressive arrangements flow nicely, featuring impressive depth and an air of unpredictability that bodes well for repeated listens.

Morean’s potentially divisive clean vocal style is heavily utilized and his oddly robotic but intriguingly addictive style and melodies sound more assured, fitting snugly into the band’s complex and progressive arrangements. They are immediately rolled out on impressive opener “Kernel Panic,” an almost soothing prog odyssey interspersed with powerhouse growls, ripping solos and vicious bursts of muscular riffage and deathly groove. The songs are given ample room to breathe and develop, while everything sounds less clinical, yet looser and more fun. “Azagthoth” is a particularly wicked tune, the quirky and off-kilter prog-death juggernaut is beefed up with killer drumming, clever twists and memorable songwriting. There’s something about this song, and the album as a whole, that reminds me of Cynic’s excellent Traced in Air opus, more in spirit rather than sounding particularly similar musically.

While still tipping the scales at a lengthy 64 minutes, the more successful progressive forays and consistent song-writing makes Liquid Anatomy feel like a leaner, less exhaustive listen than the debut, although the largely engaging 19 minute closer “Rise of the Cephalopods” could have had a few minutes shaved for a tighter conclusion. As expected the musicianship is next level shit, yet sounds more grounded in the context of the songs, pleasantly indulgent but not overly so. Every now and again I crave a heavier section to kick in, but overall Alkaloid deftly balances mellower prog with death metal bluster. Guitarists’ Danny Tunker and Christian Münzner are a two-pronged tour de force boasting excellent chops and an array of great riffs and sizzling solos, stretching the boundaries of the Alkaloid sound (check out their gorgeous combined work and stunning soloing on the sublime and soulful title track) and deftly meshing proggy experimentation with potent death metal riffs and aggression. They each sound as if they’ve pushed themselves to the limit creatively during the album’s conception. The production gets the job done well enough, sounding a little more organic and less polished than the debut, although the industry standard compression remains.

Liquid Anatomy solidifies Alkaloid as an adventurous and unique force in the modern metal scene, successfully crafting dazzling new dimensions into their complex, genre-blurring, progressive death mindfuck. Tired of the frustratingly tiresome and soulless aspects of tech death? Or progressive metal that forgets how to sound metal? Alkaloid has you covered with another ambitious, frequently thrilling and memorable progressive death opus that will threaten inclusion on many year-end lists.

Rating: 4.0/5.0 DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3 Label : Season of Mist Websites : alkaloid-band.com | facebook.com/alkaloid.metal Released Worldwide: May 18th, 2018

Give in to Your Anger:

Rating system.

5.0 - Iconic 4.5 - Excellent 4.0 - Great 3.5 - Very Good 3.0 - Good 2.5 - Mixed 2.0 - Disappointing 1.5 - Bad 1.0 - Embarrassing 0.5 - Unlistenable

Record o' the Month

1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 American Metal Black Metal Black Sabbath Canadian Metal Death Metal Doom Metal Finnish Metal Folk Metal German Metal Heavy Metal Iron Maiden Italian Metal Melodic Death Metal Norwegian Metal Opeth Post-Metal Power Metal Progressive Metal Review Reviews Self Release Self Released Slayer Swedish Metal Technical Death Metal Thrash Metal

• Heavy Blog is Heavy 0
• Invisible Oranges 0
• Metal Bandcamp 0
• No Clean Singing 0

Privacy and Cookies Policy

• Sign in / Join
• Media Partners
• Who’s Who?!
• Darkmode Switcher

Hardcore Punk Act Cross Dog Drop New Track “Hard Feelings” from…

Indie rock group grizzly coast releases sentimental song “sweet”, pop/rock trio, royal castles, unveil the full lineup from their ‘singles…, indie soul band, club lotus, share self-reflections on “stole my ace”, barton hartshorn shares glorious songwriting of ‘the king of my undoing’, chatting with alex from takeover, interview with soul twin messiah, miss freddye spills the tea on her career, her latest single,…, interview with ludlow creek, interview with pam ross, hold me, haunt me by tillerman, endless heartbreak by patrick doval, who needs who by nick noon, cradle rock by matt o’ree band, disappear by cat cork, album: what we fear the most by attic theory, rooted in blood by joey rival, have some faith by plastic tofu, storm by steve contino, ten rock songs for a groovy valentine’s, most influential rock songs, supporting italy: 10 italian metal albums you need to check, valentine’s day rock/metal list, christmas and winter music, rem weekly playlist – feb 18 (2022), rem weekly playlist – feb 4 (2022), rem weekly playlist – jan 8 (2022), rem weekly playlist – dec 17 (2021), rem weekly playlist – dec 4 (2021), exclusive: interview with morean of alkaloid.

Morean – aka Florian Magnus Maier – is a guitarist, vocalist and composer from hell. An impressive career spanning more than a decade of projects in metal, classical music and flamenco – his latest effort is the extremely ambitious supergroup Alkaloid, for whom he plays guitar and vocals. Alkaloid is a German/Dutch progressive metal band containing former and current members of Necrophagist, Obscura, Noneuclid, Dark Fortress and Aborted . They sound every bit as intense as their affiliations, with the added bonus of creative liberation and a dedication to pushing the limits of progressive metal music.

Morean was kind enough to answer questions about the band, his vision as both a composer and guitarist, science as well as the documentary about his piece, ‘Schattenspiel’.

Hello Morean, first of all congratulations on finishing what (in my humble opinion), represents some of the finest work in modern metal. The Malkuth Grimoire has been moving some serious air – it is just that extreme. When you first joined Alkaloid, did you think that you would be pushing the genre so authoritatively?

Thanks a ton! Based on past experiences with, for example Noneuclid , I try not to expect too much of a reaction to new bands and projects that I’m part of, so it’s really nice to be surprised like this by all the attention Alkaloid have been getting. Artistically, of course we set out to push the bar for ourselves, but it’s not like we sat down consciously to make it extreme. It happened because what you hear on the album was just what each of us needed to say. So the broad pallet of styles and influences just came about naturally, because that’s what makes us tick as musicians, not because we wanted to be avant-garde or anything. As a composer, you always have to create what you believe in, regardless of how the world will react to it, and in this case we are lucky that what came out resonates with our audience. A main reason to set up this band was exactly to have the greatest possible artistic freedom, and we just used that to its full extent.

You previously mentioned that no record labels were interested in signing Alkaloid . Were you surprised at all by this? Do you think it had something to do with how busy everyone was in the band, so you couldn’t be taken as a serious project?

No, I think it’s more the fact that we still had to make a name for ourselves. Labels are struggling to survive, and many of them don’t take any risks with new bands, all the more if they are hard to categorize like we are. If a bigger band with an established name had released these songs, it might have been different.

Your Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign was very successful. Did the amount of money (19,000 euros) you receive surprise you? Or did you guys expect to receive that much?

We were all very surprised, definitely! We just hoped to be able to make this album as good as possible, and the money that came in through Indiegogo allowed us to do exactly that. It all went into studio bills and the artwork – a lot of time and effort went into this album. Seeing how well this campaign worked out for us gives us a lot of hope and motivation for the future, and we are eternally grateful to all the people that made this possible!

Hannes mentioned that some of the Indiegogo money would go towards funding music videos, are you at liberty to mention any candidates?

We are currently looking into options for a clip; there are a few candidates and we like all the songs of course, but what song we’ll choose will largely depend on what is possible to shoot. So I keep it vague for the moment, because anything I say here might change 5 minutes later.

Dyson Sphere fuses progressive rock with death metal very nicely. What motivated you to write it like that?

It all came from the story and lyrics actually; every line of text demanded a certain musical response, and that led to this wild oscillation between moods and styles. In the second movement, Assembly, there was one concrete influence – I had just started composing it when Manu Chao performed a stone’s throw from my house. I came back from the show with all these reggae beats in my head, and before I knew it, I was writing something that could be called death metal reggae. Without this random Manu Chao show, that piece would never have sounded like this.

The Alkaloid record clocks at over 70 minutes of music. Were you guys concerned that the depth and length of the music would dissuade potential listeners?

Yes, somewhat. It was difficult to choose what would and what wouldn’t make it onto the album, since we had enough songs to fill three albums actually. We knew it’s all a bit too much for one album really, but at the same time we are so excited about each song on there that we didn’t want to skip any of them. You also see in the many reviews we receive that everyone seems to have different favorites – this confirms for us that it was a good idea not to sacrifice any of the songs in order to make the album shorter. Sure, it’s a lot to digest, but to us, the album makes sense like this a whole, and we were confident it wouldn’t get boring since the songs are so different from each other. It was important to us to present ourselves with as rich an album if possible, and for those who find it too long, there’s the skip-button, right?

You have a degree in Composition, but your guitar work with Alkaloid and Noneuclid is at a very high level – Do you consider yourself a composer first/guitarist second, or how does that work for you?

I’m mainly a composer, and have been for many years. Performing live on guitar and / or vocals remains an essential part of being a musician for me, but my reality is 80% composing, 20% performing. Between my classical work and all the bands, I don’t play nearly as much guitar anymore as I used to, and that pains me sometimes, but at the same time I’ve been very fortunate as a composer to have so much work. I guess I was always better at writing than at playing, and life happened accordingly. These days, I do feel a bit like a caveman at first every time I pick up the guitar again after months of not playing a single note of course, but I have no complaints that things went like this.

As a guitarist, you have a very distinguishable style and tone, not just on The Malkuth Grimoire but also with Noneuclid and Obscura . What influenced you to have that alien tone and very unique style of play?

I guess the search for something to say that hasn’t been said a million times over by others. This was the main focus in my composition studies as well; you do pick up a lot of techniques that others have invented along the road, but the much more important (and much more difficult) part is finding your own voice. I guess this principle translated naturally from my writing into my playing in the course of the years. Given enough time to practice, I can shred in a traditional way if I put my mind to it, but I will never be as good in it as others are, and with Christian and Danny we have two world-class guitar shred monsters in the band already. It wouldn’t add much if I tried to do the same and failed, so I prefer to add my own spice always – even if, initially, that also came out of admiration for players like Trey Azagthoth whose playing you can recognize after 2 beats, and in that, my influences are pretty obvious in a track like Cthulhu for example.

On that issue – many guitarists, however skilled, struggle with carving their own sound – What would your advice be to those players?

Look at everything you’re doing, then pick out the very best or most exciting elements of that, and focus on developing those as rigorously as possible. For example, if you compose a solo, and one bar in particular excites you more than the rest, try and base the entire solo on that idea and develop that as far as you can. The same is true for songwriting. Creation usually starts with a sort of brainstorming phase, where a lot of different ideas land on the table; the selection process that happens after is what gives rise to your own style. You are, after all, the choices you make, in music as much as in life itself. It’s good to go over your things several times like that, because with every decision you make to keep some things and get rid of others, you come a step closer to your unique voice. Art almost always starts from imitating others, but that’s just a first step, and focusing your energy on sounding like someone else is usually a gigantic waste of time. I mean, nobody will ever be better at being Yngwie Malmsteen than Yngwie Malmsteen, and conversely, nobody will ever be better at being you than you. It’s good to try and see where you are standing compared to others, but when you create, you should not think at all about what others do and how you measure up to that. Nothing new was ever created with everyone else’s work in mind – that just holds you back and makes you insecure.

You use B.C Rich Guitars and Fractal AxeFX gear quite a bit – Do you ever seek official support from any of these companies?

As far as I know, Fractal doesn’t endorse musicians, and so far, none of the bands I played guitar in was big enough to attract attention from guitar companies. If it happened now with Alkaloid and BC Rich guitars tho, I’d be very happy. Maybe the time has come to write to them. I’d be very proud to endorse them – BC Rich USA is one of the very few remaining guitar companies that still build their instruments by hand, and as a player, I do feel the difference in those instruments compared to machine-made instruments. The latter may be “perfect” on the surface, but very often lack the soul and character that a handmade instrument automatically possesses, and that translates directly to what and how you play, at least to me.

According to your Wikipedia page, you had previously auditioned for the Morbid Angel guitarist spot. How was that entire process for you?

Morbid Angel has been one of my favorite bands for a long time, and I just had to try when they announced the audition. I didn’t expect anything from it, so I was very surprised to receive a call from David Vincent after the first selection rounds. I had like 3 days to learn and record a video of me playing ‘Rapture’ and ‘Pain Divine’, and for the last round they asked the remaining candidates to play and record as much of their live album as possible. So I did almost all the other songs off that album in the week after, until my hands bled, and sent them videos again. At the end they decided for Thor, and very deservedly so, he’s a monster musician. I didn’t get to meet the band in the flesh unfortunately, all went through videos and email, but it’s definitely a huge feather in my cap that they would even consider me. I’m very proud of that, even though I didn’t get the job.

You have close ties to technical death superstars Obscura. Did you ever consider joining them as a guitarist when a spot became available?

No, because we were already very busy with Alkaloid behind the scenes and I have too many bands already. I consider myself a rhythm guitarist, despite the occasional solo I play, and anyway, I could never have taken over the huge shredding heritage of Christian Münzner. In terms of musical style and also on a personal level, it would be fantastic to perform with Obscura , we have been good friends for many years and I have enormous respect for them and what they have achieved. But I think they deserve a lead guitarist who can really focus on Obscura ‘s demands, and even if I had the level of playing required, I would not be able to do that with everything else on my plate demanding attention as well. I think Fountainhead is a fabulous choice for the job; he’s a unique player and a very cool dude as well. I’m extremely curious to hear what they’re gonna come up with on the next album.

Recently the Dutch channel (NTR) filmed a documentary about your childhood, classical composition and metal music – how was that entire experience for you?

I guess those were my 50 (in this case) minutes of fame! For now, anyway…. I’ve been at it for a while here in the Netherlands, and there were other, smaller documentaries about my work made in Holland here and there, but to be exposed in such depth and on national TV was of course an incredible honor. I love the programs these guys make, and it was incredible how much effort they put into the documentary – traveling with a camera team all the way to my home town, to Santura’s studio, my old rehearsal room, even interviewing my grandmother. I couldn’t be happier about how it turned out, and it’s cool to get to show people a peek into the composer’s kitchen. A lot of work, thought and effort goes into my music, and it’s really cool to get to show some of that as well besides the sounding musical result.

What are some modern bands do you listen to at the moment?

Lately, what has been on heavy rotation is Lord Mantis from Chicago (unfortunately disbanded recently), Swans from New York with their fabulous new album, and Steven Wilson – I don’t like everything he does, but Insurgents is a contender for the album of the decade for me. I also got into the whole sludge-thing more; not heavily at all, but bands like Yob or Indian did impress me when I saw them live. Another band I respect a lot are Portal from Australia – that’s some of the best black metal out there. But I don’t get to listen to and discover nearly as much new music and bands as I’d like to, I have to say. That’s one down side of making music all day long, every day. There’s a limit to how much music one can absorb, and that space tends to fill up with your own stuff before you realise it.

This might be a big question – What are some classical music pieces that you really think metalheads can/should listen to?

Oh, that’s easy, because especially the 20th century offers a lot of very dark and creepy classical pieces and composers. To start with, I recommend:

Igor Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring Krzysztof Penderecki – Polymorphy György Ligeti – Atmosphères John Oswald – Spectre Pierre Boulez – Repons Dmitri Shostakovich – anything really, but especially String Quartet #8 and the symphonies Béla Bartók – Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Alexander Scriabin – Vers la Flamme & Poème de l’Extase John Leifs – Hekla Matthew Hindsen – Death Stench

You are very fascinated by popular scientists like Carl Sagan and Freeman Dyson. What is it about the observable universe that intrigues you so much? Any other big scientists whose work you enjoy reading?

Coming actually more from a spiritual / occult background, I have to say I find the mysteries of the real world increasingly fascinating. I’m an escapist at heart, and I’ve always mainly been busy with alternative realities to the one we know. This is part of an artist’s job – showing things and worlds that were not there before. But I admit that, in the past, I had underestimated the magic that so-called reality has to offer, and my problem with the occult at this point is that there’s still a vast degree of cheap symbolism, unquestioned assumptions and plain random bullshit clouding the very real and relevant core of the matter. After more than a century after the discovery of quantum mechanics, it seems science is starting to open up to the empirical investigation of ideas and concepts now that traditionally belonged more in the spiritual or psychological realm. Only last night, I saw an episode of ‘Through the Wormhole’ on Discovery Channel in which telepathy; morphic fields and the so-called sixth sense are examined in a scientific light. These things have been obvious for a long time to anyone who has experienced them in practice, so for the rest of the world, it’s nothing new really, but the advantage of science’s take on them is that we can see these phenomena as part of the natural world and its laws, rather than a matter of mere belief and auto-suggestion (aka “bullshit” in the eyes of science), and strip them of the manipulative mumbo-jumbo and superstition pertaining to the realm of religion and see them for what they are. Science might be as block-headed as religion at times when it comes to accepting the existence of things outside its traditional canon, but at least in science, there’s a tradition of admitting a mistake and correcting the paradigm according to the facts we can observe. There is no pretense of infallibility like in religion and spirituality.

In occultism, I also prefer the more modern writers like Peter J Carroll or Phil Hine who try to see “magick” as a school of psychic engineering, rather than a random set of variations on old superstitions. Luckily, as an artist, you don’t have the obligation of objectivity like in science, and I find a great deal of inspiration in trying to wrap my (very amateurish) head around exciting new scientific ideas and let them spark the creation of artistic visions.

But even more impressive than mere ideas and interpretations of the laws of nature, I must say I find nature itself: standing on top of a mountain or watching the refraction of light on the waves of the ocean, even just the complex arrangement of leaves on a tree or bathing in the light of the milky way on a clear night, fills me with an overwhelming sense of beauty and belonging that makes any artificially created god or demon and their subsequent rituals redundant. I spent many years sifting through my own and other people’s fictional universes, and always loved it, but I have to say no apocalyptic vision of any magic book can compete with the visions of for example Stephen Baxter, whose hard science fiction departs always from what is real, and tries to think those things through to their most extreme extents. (Check out his Manifold series for example.) It takes great minds to do that – and considering how little we still know about the world around us, this school of thought is bound to entertain us for many years to come.

Last question – We are all hoping to see Alkaloid on the road. Does Alkaloid have any tour plans materializing?

We are working on it at the moment. It’s gonna be a whole new chapter in our young history, and like with the album, we want to do it right. It’s never gonna be easy, what with all the other bands we’re engaged in, and we inherit the same problem these other bands also all have, which is to find the time and resources to get together and do stuff in a genre that lets its artists starve completely. But we founded Alkaloid as a real band, and are way to excited about what we’ve been doing to not try and play this stuff live on a regular basis. Hopefully, we can take the step onto the stages of the world very soon. It is a distinct goal of us to play as many concerts as possible in the future.

Edited by: NJ Bakr

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Interview with famous iranian musician and activist sahar ajdamsani, interview with australian rockstar dellacoma rio, interview with the belgian atmospheric black metal band soul dissolution, popular & latest.

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Rock Era TV
• Previous Members

Judah & The Lion ‘The Process Tour’ this fall includes 1 stop in Pa.

• Updated: Apr. 23, 2024, 2:42 p.m. |
• Published: Apr. 23, 2024, 2:42 p.m.

Judah & The Lion will launch "The Process Tour" this fall. It includes an Oct. 19, 2024, concert at The Fillmore in Philadelphia. Here, Judah Akers from the band performs at the Governors Ball Music Festival on Friday, June 2, 2017, in New York. Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

• Deb Kiner | [email protected]

Judah & The Lion are going on tour this fall to promote their new album, “The Process,” which will be released on May 10.

The tour includes a stop on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, at The Fillmore in Philadelphia with support from Abe Parker.

The band - Judah Akers and Brian Macdonald - began releasing songs from the album last year.

According to Live Nation, “The new material has racked up over 10 million combined global streams to date and earned spots on numerous playlists across all DSPs, including Spotify’s New Music Friday, Apple Music’s New Music Daily and Amazon Music’s Alternative Hits, with additional support from SiriusXM Alt Nation’s ‘Advanced Placement,’ Pandora, YouTube, SoundCloud, Tidal, Audiomack and Deezer. The band’s single, ‘Floating in the Night,’ is at No. 36 at Alternative radio.”

Ticket presales started today for Citi card members . General ticket sales start at 10 a.m. Friday, April 26.

The tour includes these stops:

Oct. 4 - Tulsa, Oklahoma

Oct. 5 - Kansas City, Missouri

Oct. 6 - Omaha, Nebraska

Oct. 8 - Salt Lake City, Utah

Oct. 9 - Denver, Colorado

Oct. 12 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Oct. 13 - Grand Rapids, Michigan

Oct. 15 - Columbus, Ohio

Oct. 17 - Boston, Massachusetts

Oct. 18 - Silver Spring, Maryland

Oct. 20 - Raleigh, North Carolina

Oct. 23 - Charleston, North Carolina

Oct. 24 - Birmingham, Alabama

Oct. 25 - Atlanta, Georgia

Oct. 26 - Nashville, Tennessee

Live Entertainment

• Megadeth announces ‘Destroy All Enemies’ tour with 2 stops in Pa.
• Idina Menzel bringing ‘Take Me or Leave Me Tour’ to Hershey this summer
• Asia ‘Heat of the Moment’ tour coming to central Pa. this summer
• The Head and The Heart announce summer headlining tour, fall arena tour with The Black Keys

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

• Anniston/Gadsden

Legendary hard rock band will be on tour this summer: How to find tickets

• Updated: Apr. 23, 2024, 11:35 a.m. |
• Published: Apr. 23, 2024, 11:35 a.m.

Hard-rock band Staind will bring its "Tailgate Tour" to Orange Beach and Pelham in May 2024. Courtesy of Red Mountain Entertainment

• Kelly Kazek | [email protected]

If “It’s Been a While” since you’ve seen Staind in concert, now’s your chance. Staind is out on its Tailgate Tour with Seether as opener.

The hard-rock band will be at the Wharf Amphitheater in Orange Beach, Ala., on May 14, and Oak Mountain Amphitheater near Birmingham on May 15.

How to find tickets

Find tickets to the Orange Beach show at Ticketmaster | StubHub | SeatGeek | Vivid Seats .

Find tickets to the Birmingham show at Ticketmaster | StubHub | SeatGeek | Vivid Seats .

The site AmericanSongwriter.com says: “Since their debut in 1996, Staind has become a legendary band in the worlds of hard rock, metal and post-grunge. Frontman Aaron Lewis wrote most of the band’s material that is oftentimes unsettling, and even disturbing, compelling the listener to think and take an honest look at their own life alongside Lewis, who takes you inside the depths of his mind.”

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Claudia Looi

Touring the Top 10 Moscow Metro Stations

By Claudia Looi 2 Comments

Komsomolskaya metro station looks like a museum. It has vaulted ceilings and baroque decor.

Hidden underground, in the heart of Moscow, are historical and architectural treasures of Russia. These are Soviet-era creations – the metro stations of Moscow.

Our guide Maria introduced these elaborate metro stations as “the palaces for the people.” Built between 1937 and 1955, each station holds its own history and stories. Stalin had the idea of building beautiful underground spaces that the masses could enjoy. They would look like museums, art centers, concert halls, palaces and churches. Each would have a different theme. None would be alike.

The two-hour private tour was with a former Intourist tour guide named Maria. Maria lived in Moscow all her life and through the communist era of 60s to 90s. She has been a tour guide for more than 30 years. Being in her 60s, she moved rather quickly for her age. We traveled and crammed with Maria and other Muscovites on the metro to visit 10 different metro stations.

Arrow showing the direction of metro line 1 and 2

Moscow subways are very clean

To Maria, every street, metro and building told a story. I couldn’t keep up with her stories. I don’t remember most of what she said because I was just thrilled being in Moscow.   Added to that, she spilled out so many Russian words and names, which to one who can’t read Cyrillic, sounded so foreign and could be easily forgotten.

The metro tour was the first part of our all day tour of Moscow with Maria. Here are the stations we visited:

1. Komsomolskaya Metro Station  is the most beautiful of them all. Painted yellow and decorated with chandeliers, gold leaves and semi precious stones, the station looks like a stately museum. And possibly decorated like a palace. I saw Komsomolskaya first, before the rest of the stations upon arrival in Moscow by train from St. Petersburg.

2. Revolution Square Metro Station (Ploshchad Revolyutsii) has marble arches and 72 bronze sculptures designed by Alexey Dushkin. The marble arches are flanked by the bronze sculptures. If you look closely you will see passersby touching the bronze dog's nose. Legend has it that good luck comes to those who touch the dog's nose.

Touch the dog's nose for good luck. At the Revolution Square station

Revolution Square Metro Station

3. Arbatskaya Metro Station served as a shelter during the Soviet-era. It is one of the largest and the deepest metro stations in Moscow.

Arbatskaya Metro Station

4. Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station was built in 1935 and named after the Russian State Library. It is located near the library and has a big mosaic portrait of Lenin and yellow ceramic tiles on the track walls.

Lenin's portrait at the Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station

5. Kievskaya Metro Station was one of the first to be completed in Moscow. Named after the capital city of Ukraine by Kiev-born, Nikita Khruschev, Stalin's successor.

Kievskaya Metro Station

6. Novoslobodskaya Metro Station  was built in 1952. It has 32 stained glass murals with brass borders.

Novoslobodskaya metro station

7. Kurskaya Metro Station was one of the first few to be built in Moscow in 1938. It has ceiling panels and artwork showing Soviet leadership, Soviet lifestyle and political power. It has a dome with patriotic slogans decorated with red stars representing the Soviet's World War II Hall of Fame. Kurskaya Metro Station is a must-visit station in Moscow.

Ceiling panel and artworks at Kurskaya Metro Station

8. Mayakovskaya Metro Station built in 1938. It was named after Russian poet Vladmir Mayakovsky. This is one of the most beautiful metro stations in the world with 34 mosaics painted by Alexander Deyneka.

Mayakovskaya station

One of the over 30 ceiling mosaics in Mayakovskaya metro station

9. Belorusskaya Metro Station is named after the people of Belarus. In the picture below, there are statues of 3 members of the Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II. The statues were sculpted by Sergei Orlov, S. Rabinovich and I. Slonim.

10. Teatralnaya Metro Station (Theatre Metro Station) is located near the Bolshoi Theatre.

Teatralnaya Metro Station decorated with porcelain figures .

Taking the metro's escalator at the end of the tour with Maria the tour guide.

Have you visited the Moscow Metro? Leave your comment below.

January 15, 2017 at 8:17 am

An excellent read! Thanks for much for sharing the Russian metro system with us. We're heading to Moscow in April and exploring the metro stations were on our list and after reading your post, I'm even more excited to go visit them. Thanks again 🙂

December 6, 2017 at 10:45 pm

Hi, do you remember which tour company you contacted for this tour?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.

Moscow Metro Tour

• Page active

Description

Moscow metro private tours.

• 2-hour tour $87:  10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off
• 3-hour tour $137:  20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. 
• Metro pass is included in the price of both tours.

Highlight of Metro Tour

• Visit 10 must-see stations of Moscow metro on 2-hr tour and 20 Metro stations on 3-hr tour, including grand Komsomolskaya station with its distinctive Baroque décor, aristocratic Mayakovskaya station with Soviet mosaics, legendary Revolution Square station with 72 bronze sculptures and more!
• Explore Museum of Moscow Metro and learn a ton of technical and historical facts;
• Listen to the secrets about the Metro-2, a secret line supposedly used by the government and KGB;
• Experience a selection of most striking features of Moscow Metro hidden from most tourists and even locals;
• Discover the underground treasure of Russian Soviet past – from mosaics to bronzes, paintings, marble arches, stained glass and even paleontological elements;
• Learn fun stories and myths about Coffee Ring, Zodiac signs of Moscow Metro and more;
• Admire Soviet-era architecture of pre- and post- World War II perious;
• Enjoy panoramic views of Sparrow Hills from Luzhniki Metro Bridge – MetroMost, the only station of Moscow Metro located over water and the highest station above ground level;
• If lucky, catch a unique «Aquarelle Train» – a wheeled picture gallery, brightly painted with images of peony, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers and each car unit is unique;
• Become an expert at navigating the legendary Moscow Metro system;
• Have fun time with a very friendly local;
• + Atmospheric Metro lunch in Moscow’s the only Metro Diner (included in a 3-hr tour)

Hotel Pick-up

Metro stations:.

Komsomolskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Prospekt Mira

Belorusskaya

Mayakovskaya

Novokuznetskaya

Revolution Square

Sparrow Hills

+ for 3-hour tour

Victory Park

Slavic Boulevard

Vystavochnaya

Dostoevskaya

Elektrozavodskaya

Partizanskaya

Museum of Moscow Metro

• Drop-off  at your hotel, Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills or any place you wish
• + Russian lunch  in Metro Diner with artistic metro-style interior for 3-hour tour

Fun facts from our Moscow Metro Tours:

From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Metro was the object of civil defense, used as a bomb shelter, and designed as a defense for a possible attack on the Soviet Union.

At a depth of 50 to 120 meters lies the second, the coded system of Metro-2 of Moscow subway, which is equipped with everything you need, from food storage to the nuclear button.

According to some sources, the total length of Metro-2 reaches over 150 kilometers.

The Museum was opened on Sportivnaya metro station on November 6, 1967. It features the most interesting models of trains and stations.

Coffee Ring

The first scheme of Moscow Metro looked like a bunch of separate lines. Listen to a myth about Joseph Stalin and the main brown line of Moscow Metro.

Zodiac Metro

According to some astrologers, each of the 12 stops of the Moscow Ring Line corresponds to a particular sign of the zodiac and divides the city into astrological sector.

Astrologers believe that being in a particular zadiac sector of Moscow for a long time, you attract certain energy and events into your life.

Paleontological finds 

Red marble walls of some of the Metro stations hide in themselves petrified inhabitants of ancient seas. Try and find some!

• Every day each car in  Moscow metro passes  more than 600 km, which is the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
• Moscow subway system is the  5th in the intensity  of use (after the subways of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai).
• The interval in the movement of trains in rush hour is  90 seconds .

What you get:

• + A friend in Moscow.
• + Private & customized Moscow tour.
• + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
• + An authentic experience of local life.
• + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
• + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
• + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
• + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
• + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

Write your review

Watch CBS News

Dickey Betts, Allman Brothers Band co-founder and legendary guitarist, dies at 80

Updated on: April 18, 2024 / 8:38 PM EDT / AP

Guitar legend Dickey Betts, who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band and wrote their biggest hit, "Ramblin' Man," has died. He was 80.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer died at his home in Osprey, Florida, David Spero, Betts' manager of 20 years, confirmed. Betts had been battling cancer for more than a year and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Spero said.

"He was surrounded by his whole family and he passed peacefully. They didn't think he was in any pain," Spero said by phone.

Betts shared lead guitar duties with Duane Allman in the original Allman Brothers Band to help give the group its distinctive sound and create a new genre — Southern rock. Acts ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Kid Rock were influenced by the Allmans' music, which combined the blues, country, R&B and jazz with '60s rock.

Founded in 1969, the Allmans were a pioneering jam band, trampling the traditional notion of three-minute pop songs by performing lengthy compositions in concert and on record. The band was also notable as a biracial group from the Deep South.

Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, and founding member Berry Oakley was killed in a motorcycle crash a year later. That left Betts and Allman's younger brother Gregg as the band's leaders, but they frequently clashed, and substance abuse caused further dysfunction. The band broke up at least twice before reforming, and has had more than a dozen lineups.

The Allman Brothers Band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and earned a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2012. Betts left the group for good in 2000, and also played solo and with his own band Great Southern, which included his son, guitarist Duane Betts.

Forrest Richard Betts was born Dec. 12, 1943, and was raised in the Bradenton, Florida, area, near the highway 41 he sang about in "Ramblin' Man." His family had lived in area since the mid-19th century.

Betts grew up listening to country, bluegrass and Western swing, and played the ukulele and banjo before focusing on the electric guitar because it impressed girls. At 16 he left home for his first road trip, joining the circus to play in a band.

He returned home, and with bassist Oakley joined a group that became the Jacksonville, Florida-based band Second Coming. One night in 1969 Betts and Oakley jammed with Duane Allman, already a successful session musician, and his younger brother, and together they formed the Allman Brothers Band.

The group moved to Macon, Georgia, and released a self-titled debut album in 1969. A year later came the album "Idlewild South," highlighted by Betts' instrumental composition "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," which soon became a concert staple.

The 1971 double album "At Fillmore East," now considered among the greatest live albums of the classic rock era, was the Allmans' commercial breakthrough and cemented their performing reputation by showcasing the unique guitar interplay between Allman and Betts. Their styles contrasted, with Allman playing bluesy slide guitar, while Betts' solos and singing tugged the band toward country. When layered in harmony, their playing was especially distinctive.

The group also had two drummers — "Jaimoe" Johanson, who is Black, and Butch Trucks.

Duane Allman died four days after "Fillmore" was certified as a gold record, but the band carried on and crowds continued to grow. The 1973 album "Brothers and Sisters" rose to No. 1 on the charts and featured "Ramblin' Man," with Betts singing the lead and bringing twang to the Top 40. The song reached No. 2 on the singles charts and was kept out of the No. 1 spot by "Half Breed" by Cher, who later married Gregg Allman.

The soaring sound of Betts' guitar on "Ramblin' Man" reverberated in neighborhood bars around the country for decades, and the song underscored his knack for melodic hooks. "Ramblin' Man" was the Allmans' only Top Ten hit, but Betts' catchy 7½-minute instrumental composition "Jessica," recorded in 1972, became an FM radio staple.

Betts also wrote or co-wrote some of the band's other best-loved songs, including "Blue Sky" and "Southbound." In later years the group remained a successful touring act with Betts and Warren Haynes on guitar. Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks died in 2017.

After leaving the Allmans for good, Betts continued to play with his own group and lived in the Bradenton area with his wife, Donna.

• Entertainment

More from CBS News

Terry Anderson, reporter held hostage for years in Lebanon, dies at 76

Aaron Carter's previously unheard music to help kids mental health nonprofit

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's latest class includes Mary J. Blige and Cher

Contaminated deer meat may have caused 2 hunters' deadly brain diseases

J. Geils Band’s Peter Wolf announces summer tour dates around New England

It’s been a minute since Peter Wolf hit the road, but that’s about to change. The former J. Geils Band singer has announced a string of New England dates that’ll give longtime fans a chance to see the Hard Drivin’ Man do what he does better than most: Perform live on stage.

Wolf, who celebrated his 78th birthday last month, is doing a series of unplugged shows he’s calling the “Waiting On The Moon Tour: An Acoustic Evening of Stories and Songs.” He’ll be joined on the July dates by two frequent collaborators — guitarists Duke Levine and Kevin Barry.

Though best known as the electrifying frontman of the J. Geils Band, Wolf has released eight well-reviewed albums under his own name, including 2002′s “ Sleepless ,” which Rolling Stone ranked No. 427 on a list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Lately, Wolf, who grew up in the Bronx but has lived in Boston for several decades, has been keeping a low profile while he writes a memoir. Anyone familiar with the singer’s backstory knows the book could be fascinating. In his late teens, Wolf lived in an apartment around the corner from Club 47, the Harvard Square coffeehouse that became Club Passim, and hung out with the likes of Mose Allison, Bill Monroe, Otis Spann, Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters.

The first of the seven shows are July 5 and 6 at Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield, Maine. Wolf will also perform in Fall River July 12, Westerly, R.I., July 13, Natick July 18, Norfolk, Conn., July 19, and Rockport July 25. Ticket info can be found at peterwolf.com .

Mark Shanahan can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him @MarkAShanahan .

No products in the cart.

Privacy Overview

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

Rock trailblazer Heart reunites for a world tour and a new song

FILE - Nancy Wilson, left, and Ann Wilson, right, of the band Heart perform as Heart is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Nokia Theatre on Thursday, April 18, 2013 in Los Angeles. Heart — the pioneering band that melds Nancy Wilson’s shredding guitar with her sister Ann’s powerhouse vocals — is hitting the road this spring for a world tour that Nancy Wilson describes as “the full-on rocker size.” (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Nancy Wilson, left, and Ann Wilson of Heart perform on opening night of the Heartbreaker Tour at the Cruzan Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Fla., June 17, 2013. Heart — the pioneering band that melds Nancy Wilson’s shredding guitar with her sister Ann’s powerhouse vocals — is hitting the road this spring for a world tour that Nancy Wilson describes as “the full-on rocker size.” (Photo by Jeff Daly/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Nancy and Ann Wilson of the classic rock band Heart perform in concert at the American Music Theater on Monday, March 24, 2014, in Lancaster, Pa. Heart — the pioneering band that melds Nancy Wilson’s shredding guitar with her sister Ann’s powerhouse vocals — is hitting the road this spring for a world tour that Nancy Wilson describes as “the full-on rocker size.” (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)

• Copy Link copied

NEW YORK (AP) — Heart — the pioneering band that melds Nancy Wilson’s shredding guitar with her sister Ann’s powerhouse vocals — is hitting the road this spring and fall for a world tour that Nancy Wilson describes as “the full-on rocker size.”

“I’ve been strengthening. I’ve got my trainer,” she says. “You go one day at a time and you strengthen one workout session at a time. It’s a lot of work, but it’s the only job I know how to do.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers who gave us classic tracks like “Magic Man,” “Crazy on You” and “Alone” will be playing all the hits, some tracks from of their solo albums — like Ann Wilson’s “Miss One and Only” and Nancy Wilson’s “Love Mistake” — and a new song called “Roll the Dice.”

Nancy Wilson, left, and Ann Wilson perform on opening night of the Heartbreaker Tour in West Palm Beach, Fla., June 17, 2013. (Photo by Jeff Daly/Invision/AP, File)

“I like to say we have really good problems because the problem we have is to choose between a bunch of different, really cool songs that people love already,” says Nancy Wilson.

Like “Barracuda,” a sonic burst which first appeared on the band’s second album, “Little Queen” and is one of the band’s most memorable songs.

“You can’t mess with ‘Barracuda.’ It’s just the way it is. It is great. You get on the horse and you ride. It’s a galloping steed of a ride to go on. And for everybody, including the band.”

The tour kicks off Saturday at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina, and will hit cities including Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, as well as the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. International dates include stops in London, Oslo, Berlin, Stockholm, Montreal and Glasgow.

The band’s Royal Flush Tour will have Cheap Trick as the opening act for many stops, but Def Leppard and Journey will join for three stadium dates in Cleveland, Toronto and Boston this summer.

Ann and Nancy Wilson will be filled out by Ryan Wariner (lead and rhythm guitar), Ryan Waters (guitars), Paul Moak (guitars, keyboards and backing vocals), Tony Lucido (bass and backing vocals) and Sean T. Lane (drums).

The tour is the first in several years for Heart, which was rocked by a body blow in 2016 when Ann Wilson’s husband was arrested for assaulting Nancy’s 16-year-old twin sons. Nancy Wilson says that’s all in the past.

“We can take any kind of turbulence, me and Ann, and we’ve always been OK together,” she says. “We’re still steering the ship and happy to do it together. So we’re tight.”

The new tour will take them to Canada, which was warm to the band when they were starting out as what Nancy Wilson calls “a couple of chicks from Seattle.” She recalls Vancouver embracing Heart, and touring in one van across Canada in the dead of winter on two lane highways.

The Wilsons at the American Music Theater on Monday, March 24, 2014, in Lancaster, Pa. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)

The Wilson sisters broke rock’s glass ceiling in the ‘70s and Nancy Wilson says they only had male influences to look to, like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Moody Blues.

Now she says she looks out and loves seeing generations of female rockers. “You have boygenius and you have Billie Eilish and you have Olivia Rodrigo and so many amazing women — Maggie Rogers and Sheryl Crow, who calls us her big influence. And then Billie Eilish might have Sheryl Crow as her influence. So it’s a really nice legacy to pass along. I like to say we’re the OG — the original gangsters — of women and rock.”

Heart has made it into the Rock Hall, won Grammys, sold millions of albums and rocked hundreds of thousands of fans but Nancy Wilson has one place she’d still like to shine.

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of their debut album, “Dreamboat Annie,” which was the same year that “Saturday Night Live” started. “So we’re actually kind of putting it out there — Heart never played on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ But what about the 50th birthday party with Heart?”

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour took over Houston in 2023. Can The Rolling Stones top it?

T he Rolling Stones tour is set to make a stop at NRG Stadium Sunday for the band’s first Houston concert since 2019. The performance comes on the heels of an album release by another music legend — Taylor Swift — whose three-day stop in Houston one year ago received shows of appreciation from fans and elected officials alike.

With the Stones' Hackney Diamonds Tour underway and Swift's 11th studio album , "The Tortured Poets Department,” that dropped last week, both music industry icons maintain dedicated fanbases worldwide. 

The 1960s rock n' roll band has been performing for decades. The Stones hold a record for drawing one of the largest crowds in rock n’ roll history during a show in Rio de Janeiro , with 1.5 million people, PBS reported. Swift is no stranger to large crowds either, with one of her shows in Melbourne seeing more than 96,000 people, according to Deadline. 

However, both music artists made their mark in Houston during their most recent concerts: the Stones' No Filter Tour in 2019 and Swift's Eras Tour in 2023. The success of their concerts highlighted their strong fanbases in the Bayou City. 

TAYLOR SWIFT : Here's a look at Texas ties to the latest release 'The Tortured Poets Department'

How did the city react to The Rolling Stones' 2019 concert?

Excited fans first caught on to the Rolling Stones’ planned 2019 Houston concert when NRG Park teased the tour stop in an email. Park officials sent an email to subscribers with the band's logo at the end of the email and no further explanation.

The 2019 show would be the Stones’ first Houston appearance in more than 10 years. The group even teamed up with the NFL for a Houston Texans—Rolling Stones jersey.

NRG Stadium officials said the venue is happy to have the band back any time.

"We're thrilled to host the legendary Rolling Stones at NRG Stadium as the first stop on their Hackney Diamonds Tour. As Mick Jagger might say, 'Start me up' – and what better place to kick off this iconic tour than right here in Houston? We look forward to welcoming fans from near and far to enjoy a night of timeless rock 'n' roll classics. Get ready to rock the night away at NRG Stadium!" stadium officials said in a statement. 

How did the city react to Taylor Swift's 2023 concert?

Houston was the second city on Swift's Eras Tour .

A marketing campaign was launched to temporarily rename NRG Stadium to "NRG Stadium - Taylor's Version," initiated by NRG Park and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo's office. Banners were placed with the temporary name on the stadium's north and south entrances.

The City Hall also honored Swift and her mother, a University of Houston alum, by lighting the building in a “lavender haze.”

How many tickets were sold at The Rolling Stones' 2019 concert?

The Rolling Stones had to postpone their 2019 No Filter Tour dates in North America because of Mick Jagger’s heart surgery. But the rescheduled concert still brought in more than 40,000 fans for its one-night stop in Houston.

How many tickets were sold at Taylor Swift's 2023 concert?

During Taylor Swift's three sold-out performances at NRG Stadium, more than 180,000 tickets were distributed, which averaged about 60,000 a day. 

NRG CONCERTS : The Rolling Stones announce Houston set for next spring

The impact of The Rolling Stones' 2019 concert in Houston

The organization Houston First found that the hotel market revenue during the Stones’ concert was $16 million between July 26-28, 2019. The occupancy was about 64%.

The impact of Taylor Swift's 2023 concert in Houston

The impact of Taylor Swift's three-day tour in Houston wasn't only shown through the name change at NRG Stadium, but also in the economic impact.  

Her tour happened the same weekend as a large convention downtown which likely contributed to the boost in Houston’s market, according to Houston First. Still, the organization found that the hotel market revenue was a whopping $34 million between April 21-23, 2023, which was a 30% increase from the same three days in 2022. The occupancy was about 78%.