CD. It's partly the sleekness of their groove and partly the jazzy underpinnings and samples (Jeff Lorber Fusion, fuzak-era Freddie Hubbard) that gives even the hardest sections a certain, if not always welcome, suppleness. As a hybrid of hardcore, hip-hop and modern techno-soul, BLO works on some levels, but the subgenre jumping (can be) cold. They got the beat, though; the drums are for the most part live, and the warmth of an honest-to-God trap set gives BLO a big rhythmic thrust that sounds wonderfully natural, if a tad anachronistic. As a rapper, MC Bello B runs the gamut from positive-mental-attitude humanism to badass, B-boy babe-hound. But for all his skill, there is an inescapable feeling of business as usual here, as if Bello and DJ K-Gee simply appropriate a number of influences from other rap and hip-hop artists. They do it rather effortlessly, but there is an unnerving sense of deja vu that could be BLO's undoing. ~ John Dougan, Option, Rovi
