‘If you think we’re progressive, listen to a Yes album from 20 years ago’ — even if you don’t think they’re progressive, you could still dust off Fragile and crank up some ‘Roundabout’
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Pointing their spyglasses directly in the starry dynamo of night, Toronto’s progressive metal prodigies Alpha Galates draw their composite material from a far-flung array of cosmic sources. Formerly known as The Hollow, Alpha Galates was predestined to come into being “by the hand of a righteous God,” as they so aptly note on their debut release, A Stimulus for Reason.
Unabashedly nostalgic for all things hard rock, the vibrant quintet — lead vocalist and drummer Matthew von Wagner, his ex-wife and bassist Karen Wagner, pianist Harmony and guitarist-vocalists Todd LeFever and Rowan MacPhail — deliver one emboldened, headbanging, fist-pumping epic after another. Plying their trade with surging guitar riffs, multi-layered vocals and von Wagner’s heart-pounding percussion, Alpha Galates recaptures the soaring sonic ecstasy of unfettered lyricism prerequisite to prog-rock. Adding their own modern twist on a neo-classical style, they’ve honed their metal to a razor-sharp edge that slices deftly through the dark matter between musical genres.
Still basking in the afterglow of congratulatory adulations recently heaped upon the band by heavy metal deity Bruce Dickinson, who tapped them as “ones to watch” on his BBC radio show, von Wagner couldn’t be more excited about taking Alpha Galates into the future.
“Things have been very different this time around,” he says of his new creative endeavour. “We changed our name and switched things up quite a bit by adding new members — Rowan and Harmony. We wanted a new start. The Hollow was a concept-driven group that revolved around the production of a trinity of albums. We had completed what we wanted to do, and it was time to move on. I used to play guitar, but I always wound up playing the drums in the studio. It comes naturally to me, so when we parted ways with our live drummer I decided to take over. People seem to think singing and drumming at the same time is exceptionally difficult, but it seems to work better for us. I can whip up the party and still manage quality control.”
Garnering praise for their exceptional ability to balance lush acoustic landscapes with sheer power-chord brutality, Alpha Galates struck audio gold by entrusting their 12-track leviathan, A Stimulus for Reason, to the mixing talents of Joe Barresi, who has put his mark on the works of Tool, The Melvins and Queens of the Stone Age.
“Part of our plan is to avoid being lumped in with a scene we don’t agree with,” says von Wagner. “We don’t consider ourselves to be specifically heavy metal or progressive rock. If you want to hear heavy metal check out some of the bands coming out of Quebec, and if you think we’re progressive, listen to a Yes album from 20 years ago. I think we’re very in the moment, even if we don’t associate ourselves with any particular style of today.”
It’s not just genres that Alpha Galates are skeptical of. They claim their name comes from a secret society that sprang up during the Second World War. Having constructed a website (www.alphagalates.com) centred onthe band’s creations and activities, but also replete with conspiratorial theories, unlikely coincidences and covert alliances, von Wagner admits the band takes a wide-angled perspective when it comes to the so-called truth.
“We like to try thinking of things in different ways,” he elaborates. “You can speculate about whatever you want [on the website]. It’s an open forum for society with weird news, a secret section and a mailing list. For example, we have one article that questions the origins of the moon — ‘The Greatest UFO of All?’ It’s a billion years old, could it be part of an alien agenda? A giant spy monster?” He laughs. “Basically, we’re just pushing the limits to see how far a major label will let us go.”
