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OK, yeah, I could do an update of my life, like my real life brother over at Pilot's World, but it's been so long since I posted (2013!?!) that I could say I had to sell my truck earlier this year to buy a house with my wife and you'd respond with: "You had a truck? And a girlfriend? That is now a wife?" so it seems like a post that is way too long.

So, after the run on sentence that I've crafted above as a nod to the grammar of all my previous posts, I will instead talk about something else in the return to blogging that Pilot and I are attempting.

Since we stopped The Cockpit and I moved up to Warman, I've struggled a little to find new music. This makes it extra surprising that I discovered a band called Nospun (The u has an umlaut but I'm too lazy to figure out how to add it in Blogger). A simple Google search shows they released a single album last May. Their main page is Bandcamp. Their Facebook is short on details. Reddit links to a post from one of the members asking people to check out their new band. No other advertising for the album seems to exist.

The rest of the results are reviews from website, magazines, etc. proclaiming the previously mentioned album as the album of the year. Maybe even decade.

This quaint, little band from North Carolina came out of fucking nowhere and released an album called Opus and holy Flying Spaghetti Monster is it good.

I'm listing it as my album of the decade already. Sure, over half the decade is still left but this one will be hard to beat. I'm sure it will stay in the top five but I would honestly be surprised if it was knocked out of the number one spot.

There isn't much new about the album, it's a fairly standard prog metal album with influences from Dream Theater, Opeth, Ayreon and Yes, but they just do it all so well. Each instrument sounds wonderful, the vocals are solid and well sung, and there are just enough catchy riffs in there to keep you wanting more.

I don't know how a band comes from nowhere like this and puts out material of this quality but it's amazing. I'm not going to say it's as good or game changing as Weezers' blue album, but it's that same kind of idea of just knocking it out of the park, first try. I also don't think this album will make these guys rich like Weezer, it is still a prog album after all and it's not the 70's.

I can't wait to hear their next album. Hopefully the fame of Opus doesn't ruin them. But humans are unusually well suited to fame and it never hurt anyone anyway....right Ms. Monroe?