Wordburglar

Focused, thematic storytelling and topical verses tend to come fairly easily to journeyman underground lyricist Wordburglar, something he's as readily proven in the studio as on stage in unscripted freestyle. For his latest record, Welcome to Cobra Island, the wily wordsmith takes a trip into nerdfest territory and constructs a disc based upon the personalities of different G.I. Joe characters, with each cut used to flesh out a different hero or villain. The rapper does a solid job at the outset, matching ample amounts of bravado, braggadocio and spots of humour with interesting backstory nuggets in a way that reimagines some of the more memorable bad guys and has you waiting to see who he'll tackle next. Unfortunately, the good guys aren't quite as entertaining, and as characters begin to bleed into one another, there's a sense that moving later tracks away from the boasts and into actual Cobra vs. Joe battles might have mixed up the formula a bit and set this quirky concept off.