Are you familiar with HACKTIVIST? Honestly, I wasn't. But one visit to their website is enough to pique anyone's interest, as these guys are out there making some hefty claims. The band released their first album "Outside the Box" and claimed it as a warning of things to come that, now five years later, have come to pass. Now they're back again with their new album "Hyperdialect" and a lot heavier words. Claiming their previous warnings went unheeded it is important that all now listen to their words. Apparently, they have foreseen something that everyone else hasn't? Were their predictions being any different from all other warnings? Well, let's see if the hype lives up.

My first impression is that, musically, it appears to be everything we love from our Metal. It's powerful, dark, heavy, and brutal. Just with rapping. And I can't hate on them for it. They're talented linguists. I know many people who have difficulty forming coherent sentences at a slow pace. Spitting rhymes takes talent. And I respect talent in any form. I feel like they could have picked a better opening track than "Anti-Emcees" which I found to be clumsy, repetitive, a wee cringy, and a huge understatement of these guys' talent. Simply skipping ahead to the next track will give the listener a much more accurate demonstration of what HACKTIVIST is capable of, and that capability is nothing small.

However, these guys are claiming this album as a warning. They want people to heed their words and so that's what's I'm really looking at here. Maybe your words do have deep meaning and a lot of thought behind them but that doesn't show through if the listener doesn't understand what you're talking about.

In my opinion, Lyrics are poetry and, unfortunately, all too often when you're trying too hard to be poetic your original meaning gets lost. Yes, much like the entirety of the French language, it sounds good and rolls off the tongue nicely but if you think about it too hard it doesn't make too much sense. On top of that, as an American, the thick accent made it that much more difficult for me to absorb what was being said. Here's a thought: if you have a message that you feel is very important and you want people to heed it's probably best if your words are intelligible. Otherwise, you end up with a repeat of your first album.

Maybe no one took heed because no one knew what you meant? I can absolutely appreciate how difficult it is to keep your voice hard and clear at the same time. But if you are trying to push a point, I can't help but feel like enunciation should be a point of practice. If you honestly care about having your words taken seriously then it should be easy for me to take them in. Where's your lyric sheet? Why should I have to hunt down you're meaning if it's supposed to be so important? That just kind of makes it come off like you're just here for the shock value and you don't mean what you say.

So much more thought could have been put into this. For example, a song titled "Currency" on an album meant to be a social commentary and warning could tell me about the evils of money and how rich people are ruining the world and how to do better. But what I got from the track was a little bit of how people put money above all else and then a whole lot of repetitive stuff about maybe robbing the rich and giving to the poor or something.  What are you warning me of exactly? If you're so prophetic I really feel like you would have had a lot more to say. You claim you are making a statement, but I don't hear much being stated, just a lot of vaguely political stuff and a whole lot of repetition.

Honestly, I can't complain too much about HACKTIVIST. They are talented musicians. Musically, this album is nice. It's got good heavy melodies and the vocalists manage to rap to Metal which is no easy feat at all. I absolutely commend these guys for their musical magic. I simply feel that if you're going to be out there making such hefty claims you better be backing it up a little more effectively.