Album Review: Bryte - Bryte Side Of Life

Let's get this out of the way at the start: clumsy, irritating and under-conceived, Bryte Side Of Life lacks redeeming features. Its failure is a many-splendoured thing. So, let's talk about it.

Bryte's first and most fundamental problem is his persona. The host we meet on Bryte Side Of Life is a misogynistic conspiracy theorist with an infantile, or perhaps non-existent, sense of humour. It's difficult to reconcile Bryte's initial desire to protect his people from the “dark city, filled with corruption and violence (and) political tyrants” and his subsequent cries like, “I hate skinny bitches. I break skinny bitches”. Most objectionable, though, is Chainsaw Dick. Here Bryte fantasises about murdering young women and mutilating their genitals with his… with his what? With his penis that is also a chainsaw? So he can cut up his sexual partners' vaginas? “Not on that gay porn shit”, though? Oh, okay. Phew! Blurring the line between rape and murder is funny, but gay porn is really disgusting, right? Oh, do tell us more, Bryte.

Of course none of this would matter if the album sounded good. After all, almost every great rapper says awful things. Sadly, Bryte falls down here too. As an emcee Bryte is competent – on-beat, subtly melodic, occasionally switching up his flow – but there's nothing special to cling to. Memory is a notable low point. Given a slow, monstrous beat crying for one of his better quasi-political ideas, Bryte just sounds awkward and raps about partying too hard. Having spent some time with this album, we think we're happier in The Man's Orwellian nightmare world than we would be in whatever Bryte's alternative might be.