Lloyd Banks: The Course Of The Inevitable 3: Pieces Of My Pain - Album Review

Loved the first, ambivalent towards the second, now it's time to review the third.

After having heard the first 2 albums within this trilogy, we already know for sure that Lloyd Banks is going to be delivering a lyrical onslaught with his raw technical chops. And sure as day, we got that again. Clever punchlines, liquid flows, tough multi-syllable rhyme schemes, and a sound-mixing that is 'rugged', to say the least. We got all that once more with this latest body of work, 'Pieces Of My Pain'. Banks begins on the front-foot with the menacing opener (and the title track) Pieces Of My Pain. He follows that up with the equally cold Onyx AMG and then Money Machine. 

The hard exterior of Banks is present, but what I really lean towards with this album is when he pulls back a few of the layers and delivers us some really vulnerable and touching moments. One of the most prominent moments being Daddy's Little Girl, where Banks raps directly to his daughter in a message to her. You can really feel the emotion seeping into the verses and chorus. In the first verse Banks spits the heart-warming lyrics "got a problem, we'll figure it out together, my pleasure, I treasure every single last moment we spend together". A top-top song from Banks here, loved it.

This 'softer' side wasn't just felt in the lyrics, but we get a more sensitive sound to the beats as well. The album has a great variety of production, probably my favourite production out of the 3 projects. We have the filthy instrumentals like on Money Machine, Onyx AMG and Red Alert, but we also hear some great use of vocal samples and lighter sounding tracks like Opened Gates, Voices, 101 Razors, LSD, Invisible and of course Daddy's Little Girl. The instrumentals managed to breathe a new lease of life into Lloyd's music, and his pen-game too, as he floated through much of the instrumentals with pure ease.

The album also benefited from some pretty solid features from Vado and Method Man, and I particularly liked Cormega's.

I don't think every track was a roaring success though. For example, Cliffhanger had a chorus that felt like a bit of a 50 Cent rip-off, and I know Banks would NOT appreciate that comment. But give it a listen, I think you'll see what I mean. Movie Scenes is an interesting track. Initially it was released as a single, and looking at the streams, seems to be one of the more popular tracks. However, for me personally, although I was into some of the lyrics and the hook, the quicker-tempo beat felt really mid, and the sort of wavey and ghostly synth was quite annoying too.

Overall though, I think this album is way more polished than the 2 that came before it. It has way more memorable tracks and production with lots to love about it.

Where would I listen to this?

I think it's relatively versatile, you can listen to it as background music, chilling with friends and it totally does the job fine if hard boom-bap is what you're into. You can also pay attention with the lyrics and focus on taking them in, and it also goes well in the gym too as something to keep you going.

Art work opinions.

Fairly solid, similar colour schemes to the first 2 albums. Matches the themes well and was nice to have him and his daughter (I presume it's his daughter) in the picture.

Star Track - Daddy's Little Girl

7/10