Schizoid
Category: Harsh Electro
Album: The Next Extreme
Stars: 2
Blurb: A chaotic mess of heavily distorted electronic sounds and shouting vocals that leaves a little to be desired.

 

Schizoid hails from Toronto, Canada and brings with it a sound made of pure electronics yet with the brutality of death or thrash metal. The Next Extreme, Schizoid’s latest disc is set to one tone: kill. The vocals are loud, angry, and unrelenting, the instrumentation, again all electronic, sounding like metal guitars jamming and pulsing as hard as possible with a drummer who matches their sound with equal wildness. Make no mistake about it; The Next Extreme is uncontrolled noise. The problem here is that the songs all are very similar to the point where it is a little difficult to tell when one track ends and another begins, at times making the album sound like a massive run on sentence with little to no real variation.

The Next Extreme kicks off with the title track, setting the tone, pace, and sound of the entire album as you are bombarded with harsh electronics and unrelenting vocals. Unfortunately, this continues throughout the album and despite the movie clips in various places, most tracks have small spots that differ from each other but otherwise sound extremely similar to the preceding track. “Out of Reach” has the same constant drum sound that kicks off the album but is different from “The Next Extreme” in lyrics and a short breakdown in the middle of the song. “Pained” changes things up a little with some keys in the background behind the guitar like samples. The same of which can be said for the short, notable track “Real Evil,” being one of the most different sounding tracks on the album. “Physical is the Illusion” also changes up the music a little, though not much; its tempo is a little different and the vocals are at certain parts more harshly spoken rather than outright screamed and throughout features some ambient elements. “Epitaph” sounds almost like an alternative rock song with its main elements sounding like a generic guitar, followed by tracks like “Life is Struggle” and “Promise of the End,” which go back to the sound found on most of the album’s songs.

Schizoid isn’t for everyone and his music is specifically for those who only want to hear this style. There is little diversity to back up some of the album’s positive qualities. However, The Next Extreme moves at virtually one speed and one sound the entire listen, which may work for some, though others may skip it to find something a little more varying.
 
Track list:

1. The Next Extreme
2. Out of Reach
3. Pained
4. Real Evil
5. Physical is the Illusion
6. Nothing but the Same
7. Fret, Regret
8. Mainstream Underground
9. Another Go
10. Epitaph
11. Life is Struggle
12. Slaviour Saves
13. Promise of the End
14. Something to Look Forward To
15. Final Descent
16. The Last Extreme

 
Schizoid Website http://www.schizoid.ca
Schizoid MySpace http://www.myspace.com/schizoid
Schizoid Facebook http://www.facebook.com/schizoiddtrash
Schizoid Twitter http://www.twitter.com/schizoid_dtrash
Schizoid SoundCloud http://www.soundcloud.com/theschizoid
Schizoid Bandcamp http://schizoid.bandcamp.com
D-Trash Records Website http://www.dtrash.com
D-Trash Records MySpace http://www.myspace.com/dtrash
D-Trash Records Facebook http://www.facebook.com/dtrashrecords
D-Trash Records Twitter http://www.twitter.com/dtrash
 
Purchase at:
Amazon CD
Amazon MP3
 
2012-02-24
 
Ovis Terrell Ross (InvaderOutsideIO)