As much as Kurt Cobain is one of rock ’n’ roll’s most hallowed icons, he has a lot to answer for. And no, we’re not just talking Chad Kroeger. With the culture-shifting juggernaut that was “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, the late Nirvana singer-guitarist instantly made loud-quiet-loud the most aped formula in modern music. Whether you’re talking Linkin Park, Daughtry, or Theory of a Nickelfault, you can’t turn on rock radio without hearing someone ripping off Seattle’s most tortured son. Give Toronto’s unabashedly opulent metalheads Alpha Galates credit, then, for trying something different on their major-label debut, A Stimulus for Reason.

“I respect Nirvana and like their stuff, but we sort of think loud, loud, louder,” drummer and vocalist Matthew James Von Wagner says, on his cellphone somewhere outside of Lethbridge, Alberta. “We don’t like to limit ourselves, so if there’s a note to be played or sang, I’m going to put it in there. We definitely don’t have a less-is-more attitude.”

That much is clear from A Stimulus for Reason, a lush alt-prog record that suggests the members of Alpha Galates have spent far more time dissecting the works of Tool and Coheed and Cambria than arguing about whether In Utero is a better record than Nevermind. The disc starts out like Queen taking its cues from Rush, with the harmony-drenched Me Decade rock of “Conformity” capitalizing on the fact that everyone in the band sings. Over the hour that follows, Alpha Galates comes on like a Euro-metal grudge match between black album–era Metallica, Lacuna Coil, and Genesis before Phil Collins took control. Whether it’s the multitracked bass-line bombs in “Passion” or the dense dreamo guitars in “Love Despair”, too much is never enough.

Originally calling itself the Hollow, the band formed in Medicine Hat, where black-light posters and Chrysler Building–sized bongs evidently never went out of fashion. After relocating to Toronto, Von Wagner, Karen Wagner (bass), and Todd Lefever (guitar) teamed up with Rowan MacPhail (guitar) and mono-named keyboardist Harmony. The drummer decided early that there would be no such thing as too many layers to the songs of Alpha Galates. Veteran producer and engineer Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tomahawk) found that out when Von Wagner—who recorded A Stimulus for Reason—brought the album down to Los Angeles for him to mix.

“This record was a pretty intense experience—in a song like ‘Passion’ alone there’s 117 vocal parts,” Von Wagner says. “But the whole process was fun. I think Joe ended up more stressed than I did. He only wanted us to bring 48 tracks at a time, and I was like ‘That’s impossible—some of these songs have 48 different vocal tracks.’ ”

Von Wagner’s obsession with excess doesn’t stop there. Should Alpha Galates buck the odds and hit bigger than Nirvana circa ’91, the drummer promises a spectacle every bit as epic as the prepunk ’70s.

“I have notebooks full of ideas for big stadium tour number one,” he says with a laugh. “Definitely there’d be video screens and risers. Oh, and it would also be pretty cool to buy Iron Maiden’s Powerslave set.”

Alpha Galates plays the Plaza Club tonight (April 3).