Aphelion Barz – “Up” (Album Review)

New York City’s underground Hip-Hop scene has birthed some of the most memorable emcees on the planet. If you can prosper as a rising recording artist in that gritty gladiator form of showmanship, you can make it worldwide in music. Just ask legendary underground acts like Maino, The Lox, Jay-Z, DMX, and Nas. Following the popularity from his debut single, “All Good” release, New York’s Aphelion Barz is self-proclaimed next big act to break out of the underground.

Capitalizing on his hit single, Aphelion Barz embarks on the first trial of his career with the release of his debut project, properly-titled, ‘Up‘. The debut project features Aphelion Barz introduction single, “All Good” along with 12 more defining tracks.

With an all good leading single, can Aphelion Barz’s commercial debut live up to the proposed superior lyricism that his name carries? That is now “Up” for debate.

Lyrically, Aphelion Barz shows and proves on “Up”. The newcomer isn’t a fluke and delivers hard-hitting punch lines and strong bars; however, there is no consistency of hot bars. A lot of the lyrics on the track are more of a steroid boost than a natural gift. Trying to force the wow factor in his bars to fans on tracks like “Three Am”, “Dreamerz”, and “Gibberish”. Understandable for the act’s first time out the gate, of course, he is going to pull out the unnecessary extras. Lyrically, Aphelion Barz shines the brightest lyrically on the final track, “Alone”. The tone, mood, and wordplay formulate the perfect ending as Barz addresses himself on the track.

Production wise, ‘Up” is a strong cast of beatsmiths behind the boards. Adding well-blended backdrops of gritty, bass pumping, street sound to Barz similar persona to a tee. The highlight of production comes on tracks, “Rebirth of Slick”, “Break It Down”, “No Games”, and “Land of Entrapment”.

The features on ‘Up’ are few and far between. However, all the features balance out Aphelion Barz’s versatility on the track lyrically. Both maintaining the consistency on the track and raise the bar on the tracks.

Review the album for yourself here, courtesy of Spotify.
https://open.spotify. com/album/ 7ss5aB0zPC3QSdqUiMAPVk

Commercially, ‘Up’ contains a lot of safe bet content but culturally, not a lot of fan-favorite content that arose alongside Aphelion Barz early days. Barz plays to his strengths, and the production carries him to the finish line for a solid bronze metal effort. Barz sticks to the bars overall but it can be argued that the complete project was Barz best work to date.

Score 7/10