Sun Zoo

Sun Zoo

i just finished this album and I am giving it out for free to all, so please download it, and help spread it around to hip-hop lovers everywhere.

http://www.sun-zoo.com/music.htm

DAVE ROCKSTAR'S REVIEW:

If I have one bad thing to say about Sun Zoo's latest effort "Hope Flies" it's the Rhode Islander's accent, and that wouldn't be fair. Hope takes us on a well narrated journey through suburbia and american sprawl, and addresses issues not seen in most modern-day hiphop. The important thing is, Hope Flies does it well.

The first stand out track of the album is "Escaping," with an enchanting if not ominous sample. The story addresses a store clerk at a liquor store's inner and outer dealing with an alcoholic, and Suburban "crack" (lotto, alcohol, cigarettes). The track harkens to some of Atmosphere's work, where Slug is able to molest a beat with his very vivid, if not entirely lyrical tales of alcoholism, and depression.
The disc skips forward with abandon for transition, through a bragadocious track, and another song about depression, and the titular piece, which is really more of an interlude, albeit a good one.

Hope then pauses on a gem or two in "Glass House" and "Something is Wrong." Glass House is a very intense reflective, if not retrospective "quasi-diss" record about karma and people's willingness to take advantage of their own friends. Something is wrong deals with the issues of Self-Esteem/Self-image and how this is fueled by the media, and marketing. Something is Wrong goes on to pose the question: Are Americans worried about important issues?

From this equator, Hope Flies adventures into the almost obligatory underground "industry people are shady" track, but does it in a "rise against" manner that is fresh and well-delivered, the listener delves into Zoo's own problems with substance abuse (in "One sip") and we wind down with a track about relaxing, which is timely enough.

Hope is not at all time wasted. This ambitious project is well thought out, and well produced. The beats tend to blend well with Sun Zoo's style and cadence (while markedly predictable in some spots), and if anything could have used a LITTLE better transition, but not much.

Missing from this is the club-banger, gun play, and drug slinging that we see recycled too often in the commercial and (unfortunately) underground hiphop scene. What we are left with is a true-to-self tao of a man's struggles within and without himself that could as easily take place over a summer or a lifetime.

Hope Flies struggles through depression, alcoholism, peer pressure, and making music, all while not being too repetitive or herky-jerky. Hope is not at all cookie cutter, and is an island of freshness in a sea oft-clotted with "more of the same."

Hope Flies is available free to download here - and if the only thing you have to pay is attention for this little gem, then it is money well spent.

Sun Zoo- Hope Flies 4.2/5

http://www.sun-zoo.com/music.htm

for more reviews and more info, go to Sun-Zoo.com

Thanks!