I said I would do two albums a day, and so I will.
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49. Schizoid Lloyd – The Last Note in God’s Magnum Opus (2014) Ah, my favourite album from 2014. It’s not anymore, but I discovered the album from 2014 that’s higher on this list in 2015. This was my jam in 2014 and I’ve listened to it countless times. Released on the obscure label ‘Blood Music’, known for their “preservation of extreme metal”, this album truly is the oddball in the label’s releases. The label was founded originally to repress maudlin of the Well’s masterpieces ‘Bath’ and ‘Leaving Your Body Map’, which is how I discovered the label, but the majority of what they release doesn’t really interest me to be honest (in fact, this is the only album I bought from the label, apart from the maudlin albums). This album however, did.
Enough about the label, the band is where it’s at. Schizoid Lloyd are a Dutch band I first saw at the 2011 edition of the ProgPower Europe festival. They were regarded as one of the most surprising acts of the festival, with their weird blend of Mr. Bungle-ish avant-garde metal. Although they had only released a short EP at that point, they managed to play a 50-minute set and basically left everybody in the audience who stayed to atch them rather speechless. Their eclictic performance, combined with the weird music they play made me keep track of these guys. I caught the, live again a year later and they were even better then. In 2014 word came out these guys signed a record deal at the label I knew from maudlin’s album re-issues and it seemed like a perfect match. The label slowly revealed a couple of tracks and I, curiously watching this band from a distant, instantly knew after hearing album opener
Suicide Penguin that this was gonna be a great record. Finally I could hear the band I had enjoyed live twice in all its glory on a CD. I pre-ordered the album and haven’t looked back.
On ‘The Last Note in God’s Magnum Opus’, the band manages to blend a bunch of different music style, ranging from prog, folk and metal to classical piano, white-boy rap and psychedelica. In that respect, they are very much a modern Mr. Bungle, complete with alternating vocals between the band’s three or four singers. Because of the huge variety in songs, it’s also hard to choose a favourite among the album’s ten tracks, as every track has its highlights. From this album’s release I’ve pimped this band in numerous roulettes, sending either the aforementioned opener or the most badass riff-song on the album,
Misanthrope Puppet, usually to great results.
That said, I do not think this band is for everyone. They’re labeled mistly as ‘psychedelic/progressive’, which seems an appropriate term to describe this band’s music. I saw them again at last year’s edition of the ProgPower Europe festival. They played this album, almost in full and it was fantastic. Reactions ranged from people saying it was the best band of the weekend to people moaning about the music being a ‘disjointed mess’. Granted, the live environment is probably not the best place to hear this band for the first time, but on the CD it’s glorious.
Favourite song: Misanthrope Puppet
Other songs worth checking out: Suicide Penguin, Avalanche Riders, Amphibian Seer
Other stuff by this band: Unfortunately, this is the only album the guys have released so far.