Hi, everyone. Speethony Kertano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new fakemink EP, The Boy who cried Terrified .

This is underground rap sensation fakemink's debut commercial EP, but if you have been following this man's work, you know he has been releasing track after track, underground release after underground release, for a handful of years now. This is really his first major release since receiving a lot of very positive and glowing endorsements — since seeing his star and many others in the UK rap scene rising over the last year or so, along with the likes of EsDeeKid, for example, whose new album Rebel has been turning heads internationally. That has been the case for a lot of underground figures in the UK rap scene as of late: I mean, we are not talking about the days of The Streets, or Dizzee Rascal, or even the peak of UK grime here. What a lot of these kids are doing is an entirely new wave that feels more tied to the internet than any one place geographically.

But still, Fake Mink is an artist who's quick to celebrate where he's from. This was even the case when he was releasing music as 9090gate, or even with albums like London's Saviour. Ever since that project popped off, he's had numerous opportunities to continue developing his sound with one loose single after another, leaning into strange, spacy, cloudy instrumentals and some unique standout vocal treatments, too. Whether it's a speed change, a pitch shift, or a combination of both, fakemink, for the most part, has this strange, nasally, lightly chipmunk tone to his rapping that doesn't sound quite normal but simultaneously isn't so cartoony and leaned into that it sounds unserious or weird. After a while, you just adjust to it. It's a pill all the groovy plug and jerk rhythms make pretty easy to swallow, too.

Over the last year or so, mink has really been building up an intense buzz and is on the cusp of dropping his first, big, proper full-length album titled Terrified. Clearly, The Boy who cried Terrified is pushing us in that direction, hopefully giving us a sense of what is to follow. At the start of this year, we also saw the "fml ." single, which was a teaser track to this EP.

As somebody who's been a little Mink skeptical due to the fact that I haven't heard a lot of recent tracks that have really blown me away, I did come out of this EP mostly enjoying what I was hearing and really looking forward to seeing whatever Terrified has to offer. For one, I'm absolutely loving the futuristic chilling synthesizers covering much of "Blow the Speaker .", as well as fakemink's refrain on that track, too. He really kicked this EP off with one of its catchiest moments. The bass is absolutely subterranean; there's a cool, little lo-fi veil that the entire track is packaged in.

As snappy as it is with all these super crisp snare patterns, there's a melancholy about it that makes it super special, too. Sure, in comparison with London's Saviour, this is nowhere near as abstract or coated in mystique. But, the hooky refrains and bright synthesizers are a nice trade-off.

Following this, we have "Young Millionaire .", which is almost just as catchy. The instrumental brings a nice juxtaposition between these super strung-out, sad, lonely guitar lines and super tight shaker rhythms. fakemink's rapping and delivery sounds nonchalant, but there's enough effort going into the bars and flow for it to actually be memorable.

But I will say, the quality of the EP does begin to drop a little bit after this point. While I do think "Dumb ." has a catchy song there at its core, much of mink's performance here seems a bit too disheveled and unfocused for it to really hit or make much of an impression. The song "Mr. Chow ." is maybe the biggest low point of the entire project, with even less focused direction and more distortion in its mix. I understand it's a trendy sound and way to go in the underground these days, regardless of where you're taking it from, but I'm not entirely sure it's an aesthetic that works super well for mink on this EP anyway.

"The Mercer .", while not one of my favorite tracks here, does a better job of finding a sweet spot between the harshness of the production and that grimy underground vibe, as well as finding some pockets of melody to work into the instrumental, too.

But then "Milk & Honey .", which features production by Wraith9, who, as many may remember, also had a lot of great beat placements on EsDeeKid's Rebel. This track really brings it back to what I think was working on this EP at the start: steady flows, quality-over-quantity bars, almost meditative beat loops, and these very epic, righteous synth chords that just sound and feel so good.

Then we have the closing track on the EP, which I think is a decent moment here. Some real, true blue, UK-flavored cloud rap with some of the spaciest production on the seven tracks here. I should probably also mention this track has a Burial sample on it, which probably explains the regional flavor. I will say it does lose a bit of steam toward the end, though, with fakemink sounding increasingly dejected as the song progresses. There isn't a really strong chord progression or melody line to pull all of it together, as was the case of several previous tracks.

Overall, I thought this EP was pretty interesting, and it has me looking forward to what Terrified has to offer. For sure, there are some tracks that pale in comparison to others, but I chalk a lot of that up to maybe mink not wanting to give us every single fantastic track before the entirety of Terrified is out. While not every track is a banger, it does seem like he's pushing in terms of experimenting with his voice a little bit more to get that weird pitch feel to it to really stand out and sound specific to him.

These grimy, crispy underground tracks with super strong chord progressions and melody lines, are, I feel, a great way to move forward hopefully into this album, which is why I'm feeling a decent 6 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano. fakemink. Forever.