Strange New Past (studio album)
by Seth Sentry

The production is by far the biggest issue. It goes for this digital, overproduced, artificial sound that doesn't do the album any favors. I don't think there was a single enjoyable chorus. The rapping was fine, no complaints there, I don't think there was much more to be done considering the material he had to work with. The lyrics were hit and miss (for the most part miss to be honest). The first two songs were promising. I more than liked the concept of How Are You, demonstrating the absurdity of modern lifestyle and the hypocritic and superficial nature of human relationships from the rebellious youth perspective ("Feel like I have just been living in my head So I've been paying double rent I feel like cleaning up this clutter and this mess Feel like doing gateway drugs while I am sitting on the fence I feel I've woven my regrets into a nest, but I digress I feel all right! I'm feeling better than before If this talk was any smaller it won't fit me anymore Yeah I feel fine, got everything I didn't want I got paid, I got my fucking name in slightly bigger font"). Run provides an entertaining and nostalgic trip down memory lane back to his teenage years when it was he and the gang againist the world ("I used to think that the whole town was against us Punching through hedges and jumping over fences A couple cops on our tails, sweating and getting breathless Yelling out threats to us, "You little fuckers, we'll get yas!" Man, just for skating some ledges And plus we used to rack a bunch of stuff in '98 Jackets with a hundred pockets full of chocolates Looking like a human piñata stumbled out of the IGA Grew up by the beach, face-planting on skate ramps And laughing at tourists using spray-cans Of fake tan as if they hate sand Just a bunch of vague little vagrants in a cultural wasteland With a bono tucked in my waist-band It's not mine! "). Sadly, I couldn't find anything remotely interesting or relatable in the rest of the album. Most of his stories are not meant to be taken seriously, but they weren't that fun either, with the occasional punchline or pop culture reference ("Man, I been bad since I was just a little teenage imp Puttin' secret shit in The Beatles hits that you can only hear when you run the melody backwards") being the exception that proves the rule. Violin is the one instance where it gets serious. It is a personal song, dealing with the father and son relationship, but I can't say it touched me in any special way. The album is not that long for hip hop standards, but after a while every song felt longer than the previous.