On Aug. 26, 2022, music group “Hidden Renaissance” (which from this point forward will be referred to as HR) released their debut album by the name of “NEOPOLIS.” What makes this album unique is that it had 43 total contributors in the final product, but it has an astoundingly low number of streams on Spotify with their highest being 6,000. This shouldn’t be viewed as a bad thing, it’s more than likely they haven’t gotten enough acknowledgement yet. Described as drawing inspiration from MF Doom, this album being their first likely means there is much more to come. Of the 25 songs on the album, only seven will be reviewed.

“I CRIED TOO” gets the listeners started with a nice acapella paired with some drums. It has vocalist Andre Loot talking about people opening up about their problems and how difficult it is, with a beatswitch a little over half way through talking about being better than he was mentally. This is all over two separate relaxed beats which shows the disparity of the song. With the initial beat being more cheery sounding with somber lyrics and the second part having a slower tone with lyrics that show a bit more hope, the song is nice to listen to and really feel.

“ROAD TO CALIFORNIA” shows off vocalist Chaos1.0’s speed and flow very well. For 14 seconds straight, zero cuts, zero pauses, zero breaths, Chaos1.0 raps straight into the chorus which then talks about his aspiration to eventually end up in California and conquer it. It isn’t a perfect song by any means. The way the vocals sound is ever so slightly off, and the beat could be tweaked a bit to give it a little more life. With this in mind, this song shows so much potential for where it is now, and later down the road if it was remastered it would likely be perfected.

“BLAST OFF!” has Andre Loot back with a track thinking about him and his ex. He’s not sure what to do with his free time anymore now that she is gone and is using the music to vent. It’s following suit of the previous song he was on, having a pretty cheerful acapella sample and drum beat with some background instruments too while talking about something that wouldn’t typically match the beat. It works though. He does it very well and can even be used to show his own improvement since the story he is telling actually took place.

“PAGEANTRY” has vocalist Snick Foley over a beat sort of reminiscent of XXXTENTACION’s “vice city” with a bit more swagger to it. It’s simple yet effective and Snick Foley carries it even further. He’s talking about his own greatness but the lyrics show off his flow pretty well. If I had one critique, having a bit more filters over the vocals could’ve made it bounce more, but even as it stands now it’s good.

“AURORA POSEIDON” is one of the more calming songs of the album with Suava Dubois and Andre loot on vocals. It’s one of those songs talking about their girlfriends and gushing about them but it’s a song that you don’t really need to pay attention to the lyrics and just enjoy the sounds slowly flowing into your ears. The second part of the song is slightly louder with the lyrics but the general idea still applies.

“I CAN’T SLEEP” has a similar feeling to the last one with Vocalist Pareto and Chaos1.0 on the chorus. In the first line Pareto messed up the note he was singing in but brought it back immediately after. He talks about how someone he’s involved with is having their actions contradict each other and it’s confusing him and it’s killing him that someone he cares about is seemingly dying and being replaced right in front of him. The chorus starts, and it’s done so minimally but delivered so well. The vocal effects that it was on work incredibly, and after it’s done Chaos1.0 delivers a good conclusion to the song with having not too aggressive but also fast and somber flow. 

The last song, “FITTED CROWNS (ENCORE)” has Snick Foley ending the album with one more song talking about all the things he does. Snick Foley has such creative wordplay, and it really sounds like all these are done in an unbroken take which Snick has demonstrated he can do as easily as breathing air. Admittedly, having (ENCORE) in the title makes the listener think its sort of ending off the album with one conclusive song possibly reflecting on what came before it, but it doesn’t really do that so much. It could very well be a single, but it doesn’t detract from how good the song is. 

These songs were chosen as my own personal favorites that I thought represented the entirety of the album pretty well. That isn’t to say the other songs weren’t enjoyable by any means, they were all actually quite good, but I’ve got a particular taste in this genre of music. It’s not something I can put into words, but a song either clicks with me or it doesn’t. I think that this collective has so much possible variety and potential. This album had hundreds of contributors, but only 43 were chosen for the final product. This means newer future albums are going to have new people and those people can bring new ideas and tastes to the table. I’m rating it a three out of five stars, but as I’ve constantly said before these guys have insane amounts of potential in their future.