Then the 4th of November rolled on by and Blood Music released another gem to add to their already impressive catalog. This gem, modestly named The Last Note In God's Magnum Opus, messed with my list by being too damn good to ignore.
Looking over Lloyd's Facebook page I noticed quite a wide range of artists under "influences" and at least a few of them were Icelandic so I'm crossing my fingers, toes, limbs, etc. for them to show up here suddenly to play a show. If not, I'll just keep my hopes up that they sign up for Tech Fest 2015 so I can tell everyone I know there:
"Hey, you know that band I've been talking about for the last 8 months? They're up next, enjoy."
Throughout the 10 songs the album has to offer Schizoid Lloyd go from Queen inspired vocal melodies and hard hitting metal to soft ballads and rapping (once). Both the vocals and instrumentation is consistently great and even with the genre-hopping nature of this kind of music they are convincing throughout and never lose their own sound. The interplay between the vocals and instruments is great too, often taking turns being the main attraction. The instrumental segments sometimes remind me of later-day BTBAM or old school prog-rock so both works for me as I'm a big fan of both.
Another criticism that might come up, although it didn't bug me personally, is the fact that the lyrics are oftentimes silly or nonsensical but with music like this it would be strange to hear really emotionally serious and straight forward lyrics considering how nothing on this album goes straight forward, let alone with a straight face.
I'd say the feel of the album is often more prog rock than metal and that's largely due to the vocals being mostly clean and it is pretty lighthearted but that's not to say that it's easily pigeonholed. With the aforementioned rapping, the Smurf-esque part that follows it and the constant changes in style the band transcends the confines of the easily explainable. The only explanation you should need has been splattered all over this review already: This album is fucking amazing just like the bands that (probably) influenced it.
All in all The Last Note... went from grabbing me from the first note to keeping me addicted for the month that has passed since it's release and I still feel like I'm hearing new things here and there so I can honestly say that this will definitely end up on my top 10 list this year, the only question is what album will have to give up it's place for it to fit in? Whatever it will be it won't be an easy choice but it will be the right one as even in a year as filled with amazing albums as 2014 has been, The Last Note in God's Magnum Opus is definitely one of the best.
Because it's released by Blood Music the album can be downloaded for free on Bandcamp but obviously this is worth your money. It's an expertly crafted avant-garde masterpiece, the likes of which I haven't heard since Unexpect's last album.
Also, speaking of Blood Music, check out some of their other bands. I've written about some of their stuff before but honestly they have a fantastic track record and I'm personally dying to hear two of their 2015 releases, Öxxö Xööx's new album and Corpo-Mente's debut album. Look out for both of those on my year end list of 2015, probably Troy's too.
There's plenty of Schizoid Lloyd to go around.
Jón Þór