Emcee Mikal kHill from the North Carolina nerdcore group Thoughtcriminals first approached Pennsylvania producer Romero Shaw (Sage Francis, Sadistik) about working together on an EP seven years ago. It took longer than expected to make the project finally come together, but when it did, they realized that they would have enough material for a full length album. If you’re expecting fun songs about video games or comics, though, this isn’t the release for you. Instead, kHill gives us an album that finds him angry, depressed, cynical, and introspective.

When the opening line to an album is “Born into a world of misunderstanding and resentment,” you can surmise the tone of the rest of the album. Over a slow beat with an acoustic guitar playing minor arpeggios, the second track, “Inside the Box” gives us an emcee deeply frustrated and disappointed with the world and where he is in his life. A nice touch, though, is that he does mention his wife and daughter as two things that help him keep going, which lets a little bit of sunlight into the song. “One Last Walk” continues on this sad note, but stumbles on the chorus, where kHill does a sung/rapped call and response that comes across a little awkward, and takes away from the content of the verses, which a moving tale of saying goodbye to a loved one. It’s a small hiccup, and things get back on track quickly, as we get more of this rainy day hip hop, and Shaw does a good job of providing a gentle platform for these rhymes to play out. Once we get to the last third of the album, though, things pick up. It starts with “Something to Lose,” as the drums begin to get more aggressive and the energy level begins to rise. “I’m Awesome” is a song that kind of wavers between being fun and entertaining as it pokes fun of Diddy-style braggadocio, and just being too on the nose and late to the game. It also doesn’t quite fit amongst the rest of the material up until this point. The album closes out on a fun crew battle rap in “ONLYFAM,” with Sulfur, Tribeone, and Adam WarRock, which is a lot of fun, but again doesn’t quite fit with the first part of the album.

There’s good hip hop happening here, with some nice introspective reflection happening over the course of many songs. However, the last section of the album with a few battle raps don’t get integrated well and as a result just sound tacked on. On it’s own, “ONLYFAM” is a fun pass-the-mic session, but in the context of dust., it sticks out. I just wish everything blended together better.