L3o’s “Lyricon The Hymn Reaper” Shows Experimental Hip-Hop at Its Boldest

Miami’s music scene has always been loud, flashy, and bass-heavy. Think club anthems and neon-soaked traps. But Alex Leon, the mind behind L3o, is doing something completely different. His new album, Lyricon The Hymn Reaper, dropped earlier this month and it will for sure hack your way into a secret digital world. Since he started making music in 2015, L3o has slowly drifted away from mainstream sounds, creating what he calls the “Glitch God Universe.” And on this album, that world-building isn’t just for show. It’s the ground you’re standing on.

The album kicks off with “Invocation of the Glitch.” There’s no drum intro, just a low hum that grows into sweeping synths, like a machine slowly booting up. When the drums finally drop, they hit hard, industrial, and distorted, transporting you far away from Florida sunshine into something darker and more underground. That energy flows right into “Welcome to the Glitch God Parade,” where L3o’s vocals take center stage. He raps in a sharp, staccato style that matches the glitchy production, where the silence hits as hard as the notes.

Lyricon The Hymn Reaper never sticks to one vibe. “Kiddie Cast” switches gears with a punchy, boom-bap-inspired rhythm, but it’s layered with strange, otherworldly textures. You can hear how far L3o has come since earlier projects like A.nom.aly. The music is cinematic, carefully designed. Vocals bounce around with echoes and pitch shifts, like he’s rapping against multiple versions of himself. It’s a smart use of the studio as an instrument, pushing the “experimental” label into something that’s purposive.

The album’s emotional core is “Bill of Rights,” which grounds things with a steady rhythm that lets L3o’s lyrics shine. Here, he focuses on ideas he’s been shaping in the Glitch God universe, the struggle between personal freedom and societal pressure. The “100 stacks” hook sticks in your head, while the verses get into heavier territory, dropping terms like “magnetostatics” and “electrostatics.” It’s nerdy, but it works. It reinforces the scientist-villain persona L3o has built for this record.

Production-wise, the album is next-level. From the spacey drift of “Neil Armstrong” to the sharper tracks later on, the mixing keeps L3o’s voice submerged enough that it merges naturally with the instrumentation. You have to lean in to catch the stories he’s telling. It’s immersive, for sure.

L3o has often described his music as a form of therapy and world-building, and this album is the clearest vision of that yet. It’s bold, isolated, and at times jarring, definitely a contrast to the slick, algorithm-friendly tracks dominating charts now. By the time you reach the closer, “The Glitch That Shouldn’t Exist,” you feel like you’ve traveled through a meticulously crafted dimension. Listening to it fully, ideally with good headphones, is the only way to truly experience it.

If you want to explore the edges of experimental hip-hop, this is your ticket in. Check out L3o’s official site - https://l3o.world. Stream the album on Apple Music, and let us know what you think about it.