Schizoid Lloyd
The Last Note in God’s Magnum Opus
Blood Music
2014
Oh dear God… what an apt name for a band. The Schizoids are a Dutch Sextet, on a Finnish company, that challenges the establishment, with what could best be described as calculated insanity, rather than prog metal. As a lot of Dutch they seem to like a good Queen like harmony, but they twist and bend it out of shape into various larynx induced sounds, very much in the tradition of Mike Patton, as he often does in Mr. Bungle, with dashes of their wackiness as well. Add, Leprous like prog-goodness, which again in other songs is completely substituted by a System of a Zappath sort of illuminati approach and everything in between. A mindfunk? Ya-betchya!
“Suicide Penguin” is at best an acid trip, set to music, combining all of the above influences in a big bad fat joint which it sparks up and just smokes into cinders within minutes... lunatic park aesthetics!
“Christmas Devil” seasonal as it is, and as misappropriate as possibly you couldn’t think, just finishes the job of screwing up your mind big time…
By comparison “Avalanche Riders” is way too normal and just relies in vocal acrobatics and some harsh vocal to shock you... well and all those odd times the drummer keeps should not help you keep your marbles in order, but that's another story for another day.
“Misanthrope Puppet” is psychedelic and rather sweet, until the white boy rap part comes in, where it just feels way too trippy!
“Film Noir Hero” is no picnic either, with its piano and retro style and exorbitant ambitious vocal harmonies...
“Amphibian Seer” opens with the poetic like “your ass is a volcano”… give those guys a poetry award on the strength of that alone! The sperm is a tsunami, the sexual innuendo in the lyrics, is just not lost after the first line and the wackiness is prevalent throughout. Perversus maximus!
“Cave Painter” opens with some opulent dynamic drumming display and again is rather, “normal” all things considered...
“Chicken Wing Swans” seems to be medically done with the band running out of “shock tactics” and thus recycling some of the tricks up its sleeve while...
“Citizen Herd” sounds almost like cheap and cheesy German cabaret from early last century, with an incredibly complex instrumental mid-section, going on for a bit too long... ten minutes to be precise.
Just as a parting gesture, an “adieu” if you will the band decides to shock us once more with an all-acoustic number, very lyrical and sad indeed, that’s probably the last thing you expected from them.
Apparently this album took the band some five years to make. It could as well be true, or it could have been conceived over a week, by taking a lot of drugs, by some pretty good musicians (:D) at any rate... while it’s unoriginally original and a complete mind-trip, one cannot challenge the fact that I’d rather drop a tab of this, than the usual Dream Theater or it’s army of clowns, sorry, clones. So yeah, why not, if you can take it… it’s worth trying. I just can’t guarantee you’ll like the trip…
“Suicide Penguin” is at best an acid trip, set to music, combining all of the above influences in a big bad fat joint which it sparks up and just smokes into cinders within minutes... lunatic park aesthetics!
“Christmas Devil” seasonal as it is, and as misappropriate as possibly you couldn’t think, just finishes the job of screwing up your mind big time…
By comparison “Avalanche Riders” is way too normal and just relies in vocal acrobatics and some harsh vocal to shock you... well and all those odd times the drummer keeps should not help you keep your marbles in order, but that's another story for another day.
“Misanthrope Puppet” is psychedelic and rather sweet, until the white boy rap part comes in, where it just feels way too trippy!
“Film Noir Hero” is no picnic either, with its piano and retro style and exorbitant ambitious vocal harmonies...
“Amphibian Seer” opens with the poetic like “your ass is a volcano”… give those guys a poetry award on the strength of that alone! The sperm is a tsunami, the sexual innuendo in the lyrics, is just not lost after the first line and the wackiness is prevalent throughout. Perversus maximus!
“Cave Painter” opens with some opulent dynamic drumming display and again is rather, “normal” all things considered...
“Chicken Wing Swans” seems to be medically done with the band running out of “shock tactics” and thus recycling some of the tricks up its sleeve while...
“Citizen Herd” sounds almost like cheap and cheesy German cabaret from early last century, with an incredibly complex instrumental mid-section, going on for a bit too long... ten minutes to be precise.
Just as a parting gesture, an “adieu” if you will the band decides to shock us once more with an all-acoustic number, very lyrical and sad indeed, that’s probably the last thing you expected from them.
Apparently this album took the band some five years to make. It could as well be true, or it could have been conceived over a week, by taking a lot of drugs, by some pretty good musicians (:D) at any rate... while it’s unoriginally original and a complete mind-trip, one cannot challenge the fact that I’d rather drop a tab of this, than the usual Dream Theater or it’s army of clowns, sorry, clones. So yeah, why not, if you can take it… it’s worth trying. I just can’t guarantee you’ll like the trip…