ALBUM REVIEW: Hyro Da Hero’s album, Birth School Work Death

Most people like to rant about politics and everything in between whilst making an unnecessary fuss about it – ranging from the radical (yet awesome) Rage Against The Machine to the average whining 16 year olds who think they know everything. Take all of that out of the equation and you end up with the LA based cross-genre rapper Hyro Da Hero’s debut album Birth School Work Death. He churns up politically charged tunes while fusing hip-hop and heavy rock influences in what he stated is an attempt “To bring real music back.”

Although at times it seems a bit scattered with the non-conventional synths, he bursts into life with the booming beats of “Grudge.” He then continues down a path of fluctuating alternative rock sounds in “The Worlds Stage” while his rhymes flow over the music. Attempting to merge genres, Hyro’s album has a general craze of searching to find the right sound, featuring old school hip-hop in “Man in My City”, showing the punk side of his music with “Sleeping Giants”, and then raging in “Section 8.” Hyro takes huge musical risks as he experiments with several different sounds, which can come across as harsh and contradictory to the average listener.

Lyrically, Hyro picks up on the small aspects of life, including a conversation with Hip-Hop (ingeniously entitled “A Conversation With Hip-Hop), showcasing his ability as a lyrical poet. The album explores a myriad of topics - government conspiracies, gold diggers and anything else worthy to rage about. Despite the album being somewhat of a strange musical menagerie in an attempt to fuse genres, Hyro Da Hero stands strong for what he believes in and successfully manages to put his messages across.

Connor Williams ~ Contributing Writer (UK), RockRevolt™ Magazine