Hip-Hop’s firestarters have returned, although this once eight-man crew has diminished down to three core members, Q-Unique , Jise , and Swel 79 . But the idea of the crew’s demise doesn’t stop the remaining Arsonists from continuing to set microphones on fire, as they note on the title track and album’s opener “As the world burned, we took to embryonic state / Sonogram showed quintuplets, but that was the doctor’s honest mistake”.

The clever rebirth metaphor shines brightly, and this type of creativity is laced throughout the album, whether it’s poetically animating “Millionaire”, or the self-censorship of “Bleep”, (a purposely explicit track where all the cuss words and unmentionables are “bleeped” out, only the artists actually say the word “bleep.”) Between a great sense of humor, and blazing anthems such as “We Be About”, “What You Want” and “Burn It Out”, The Arsonists still maintain the fun-loving attitudes that listeners fell in love with a few years back.

Still, while the member list has shrunk, the changes are not without their casualties. The album does have moments that bring us back to the days of their debut, but hardly packs the raw, unadulterated hip-hop flair that they were introduced to us with during the Fondle ‘Em era, on classic tracks like “Halloween”, “Venom”, and “Geembo’s Theme”. Other tracks may have enough lyricism and word play to keep the listeners attention (“Respect The Unexpected”, “Alive”, “Epitaph”), but sometimes sleepy production makes it a harder listen. While still a decent listen in some moments, Date Of Birth comes out like an unfamiliar baby, leaving the listener wondering if the mailman didn’t get busy with ma-dukes.