Tuesday, December 13, 2016

December 13th, 2016 - King vs. Ninja vs. Unicorn!!



Good evening hop heads and metal heads!  Tonight I present to you an epic battle between good and evil, hops and malts, and a king, a ninja, and a unicorn!!  The Meista here pairing Fleshgod Apocalypse's brilliant album "King" with an equally brilliant Ninja vs. Unicorn Double India Pale Ale from the fine folks at Pipework Brewing Company!!  This pairing goes out to Craig Samson... cheers buddy and thanks for the beer!!!

Album Info:
  • Artist: Fleshgod Apocalypse
  • Title: "King"
  • Recorded: September through October 2015 at Kick Recording and 16th Cellar Studios in Rome
    Release date: February 5th, 2016 (4th full-length studio album by Fleshgod Apocalypse)
  • Record company: Nuclear Blast Records
  • Production: Jens Bogren
  • Album cover art: Eliran Kantor
  • Personnel: Francesco Ferrini (piano and orchestral arrangements), Francesco Paoli (drums, guitars, and backing vocals), Tommaso Riccardi (lead vocals and guitars), Paolo Rossi (bass guitar and vocals), and Cristiano Trionfera (guitars, backing vocals and orchestration)
  • Guest musician: Veronica Bordacchini (soprano vocals)
  • Musical style: Technical death metal, progressive death metal, symphonic metal
  • Sound: Bombastic, complex, aggressive, and powerful, Fleshgod Apocalypse's latest album, "King" demands your attention and slaps you across the face while demanding it!  This is an album with huge sound, huge guitars, and huge vocals... and all very emotional and honest!
  • Major themes: "King" is a concept album.  Of the album's story and themes, Riccardi said: "The King in this album represents the brave part of ourselves: the one we should cultivate to become strong and rise again from this Dark Age. He’s the only positive figure of this story—a man who has integrity and love for the values and truth that we all should hope for ourselves. All the other characters in the court represent the fears that can lead us to make everything worse. They try to affect the King’s decisions for their own advantage and hope for a loss of power, regardless of the suffering they’re going to create for their own world and people. As we already said when we presented King to our fans, we should all hail the King who lives inside every one of us."
  • Tracks:  
  1. "Marche Royale"
  2. "In Aeternum"
  3. "Healing Through War"
  4. "The Fool"
  5. "Cold As Perfection"
  6. "Mitra"
  7. "Paramour (Die Leidenschaft Bringt Leiden)"
  8. "And The Vulture Beholds"
  9. "Gravity"
  10. "A Million Deaths"
  11. "Syphilis"
  12. "King"

Brew Info:
  • Brewery: Pipework Brewing Company (Chicago, Illinois)
  • Website: http://pdubs.net/
  • Brew: Ninja vs. Unicorn Double India Pale Ale
  • Style: Double India Pale Ale (DIPA) / Imperial IPA
  • Serving: 16 ounce can
  • ABV: 8.0%
  • Ingredients: 2-row, Munich, Special Roast, White Wheat, and Acidulated malts with CTZ, Centennial, Falconner's flight, Zythos, cascade, chinook, Falconner's 7Cs, and Simcoe hops ("Brewed with over five pounds of hops per barrel")
  • Pour: The Ninja vs. Unicorn pours a hazy, light golden-amber with lots of effervescence and a sudsy and frothy 1+ finger, off-white head with good sustain and intricate, sticky spider web lacing.
  • Nose: The nose is very fruity, citrusy, sweet, dank, and malty.  There are wonderful enticing aromas of freshly squeezed orange juice, tangerine, juicy pink grapefruit, pineapple, mango, and peach along with agave nectar, pine resin, floral hops, soft caramel, and light grains.
  • Taste: The taste of the Ninja vs. Unicorn is like the nose (citrusy, fruity, sweet, bitter, and dank), but with a little more spiciness.  There are notes of grapefruit rind, orange juice, tangerine peel, fuzzy peach, pineapple, and mango with pine, black tea, toffee, bitter herbs, and black pepper.
  • Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation, the mouthfeel is sticky, oily, crisp, and bitter with a somewhat dry, earthy, and spicy finish with lingering bitterness.
Overall pairing: "King" is a bold, massive, sonically intense album and as such, it deserves an impressive and hop-forward brew exploding with flavor!  Thus the wonderful (and quite possibly my new favorite DIPA) Ninja vs. Unicorn Double India Pale Ale from Pipework Brewing Company!!

Cheers and hails!!


No comments:

Post a Comment