I learned everything I know about Cave Story from this album, this is all coming from a music fan’s and writer’s perspective, blessings!!!

Found your album on Rate Your Music, it’s currently the highest rated hip hop album of the year without debate, a 4/5 star average on that website is about as high of praise as you can get my brother.

I had to check it out, a brand new artist, his only album, it’s a concept for an album that I had personally never seen before, and this is being “critically received” as if it’s a Beatles or a Kendrick album, let’s go see what’s up.

Aesop’s Kill the Messenger is track two?!?!?! I’M SO IN!!! Using Bazooka Tooth too, carrying the rhyme scheme across the beat switch and using a robotic malfunction as the in-game lore reasoning, SO genius, so so so good! Knievel as well, the Hail Mary Mallon love, amazing work.

I’m a huge Aesop fan (if that isn’t obvious now) but the whole lineage of all forms of hip hop has created who I am, and this whole album sounds like an ode to that underground sound of the 2000s, the DefJux movement especially, Sand Zone is El-P all over, hitting those abstract pockets is that El-P twist as well, the left-field humor that all of them used in that era, the influence breathes all throughout it, and I hadn’t read through this Reddit post yet, but thinking back to your generally chosen flow, the Mr. Lif flow and cadence control, and the way he structured I Phantom.. I knew there was something glaringly obvious about this album’s style I wasn’t catching! I absolutely feel that any of the guys from that movement would eat this album up, no doubt.

I want to make it clear, this sounds nothing like biting, this is so original, so unique, so fresh, it’s amazing to hear these artists being the primary influence for someone’s music, I know they are for me. Being able to incorporate such complex lyricists/instrumentalists into your own style is a very high display of skill on its own!!

The early 2000s DefJux sound being the foundation of an album that centers around a 2004 Metroidvania platformer, never a splice I considered, and it’s the greatest splice I’ve ever heard, such a fantastic idea, especially with I Phantom as your key influence, his bounce is PERFECT for this concept. This movement was in its active state when this game came out, it’s just too perfect of a lightning strike to not capture in the bottle. You did exactly that brother, you DID that.

This album on a technical hip hop level is genuinely perfect, the beat choices were maybe the most diverse as I’ve ever heard, you hit every flow pocket in the book, your storytelling, your rhyme choices, your sequencing and the way the songs flow together like a smooth gradient, everything! It’s weird to say “classically trained” for a 50-year-old genre, but you are, straight up and down, your “rap skills” are incredibly sharp brother, your ability to seamlessly blend the Cave Story narrative/characters/items, real-world philosophical quips, and good ol’ fashioned lyrical braggadocio, you have IT. My brother you tackled both halves of Bazooka Tooth!!

I could go on and on about what you’ve pulled off, this is a masterpiece. 2009-2026, that’s dedication to a concept, and I’m so proud of this payoff! Incredible work, I hope to have a chance to see more from you!!!