Whoa. Wow. Hi, everyone. Sweetthony Facetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this Infinite Coles project, SweetFace Killah.

Yes, new debut album from rapper, singer, songwriter, Infinite Coles, who dropped this very trim album toward the back end of last year. As a result, it's taken me a minute to catch up to it. Now we are here.

Before I get any further into the review, I should get out of the way, Infinite Coles is, in fact, the son of legendary rapper Ghostface Killah. But before the nepo baby conversations get going, this is not just a fun fact I'm throwing into the review here because Coles' relationship with his father or lack thereof is a pretty core theme on a lot of the tracks on this record, as they allegedly have not spoken in about a decade, resulting in a lot of songs and bars about feeling inadequate, rejection, self-acceptance, and the queer culture that Infinite Coles has now found a home in.

Now, listening to this thing, musical talent has clearly not skipped a generation in the Ghostface family, but it manifests in very different ways on SweetFace Killah. The title track, for example, is not like some boom bap epic or anything of that stripe. It's more of an electrifying, sleek, pop rap number that's ready for the dance floor with confrontational, confident bars, too. It's frankly a badass opening whose only sin is that there's not another verse on it. But still, we do get a very impressive amount of versatility in just the two minutes that it lasts, because not only does SweetFace Killah half pen game, but also vocals, too, like some real range, volume, and presence.

Now, the momentum on this thing stays pretty high throughout the first half. We pretty much go full ballroom on the next couple of songs, "DMs", as well as "Boots" featuring Julz and Maleigh Zan. This has a couple of the catchiest choruses and refrains on the entire project. "Where's my boots so I could eat a bitch?" It's just amped, nonstop, thrilling hip house that just is eccentric, it's flamboyant, it's unapologetic, it's in your face, it's well written, it is very diverse. So many different moving parts, and yet they all hit. It is a total voguing anthem. You can feel the competitive tension in every beat.

The record smoothes out a little bit here with the song, "Shoot", which has some throwback electro vibes to it before it is fully immersed in these really serene, beautiful, oceanic synth cords, which Infinite Coles' voice just swims through the entire time. Again, I'm just consistently loving the youthful energy applied to production and vocal styles that are just really knowledgeable, really studied when it comes to old-school forms of dance and pop and RnB.

Following this, we have a trio of pretty essential tracks on the record. We have "Thankful", which is a super powerful piano-driven track with a shockingly good vocal performance. Like, damn. Again, I knew the bars were there from the teasers, but I had no clue that SweetFace Killah was going to kill it on the vocal front, smash it on the vocal front so hard. As this track takes me back to a lot of endlessly re playable radio jams from the '90s in the RnB, New Jack Swing, and pop lane. The "Why's It Important? (Interlude)" is a heartwarming moment that while it is not a full song or anything like that, feels just as essential as any full song on the record.

And "Dad & I" is... This track is fucking amazing. Not only are the pumping beats and bittersweet keyboard chords, just such a nice touch, but there are some tasteful echoes of tracks like TLC's "Creep" haunting this instrumental in such a great way. I'm just going nuts for Infinite Coles' storytelling here, the confessional writing. And this chorus is just so close to becoming a vocal tick for me, "My dad and I, don't see eye to eye." It's an absolute tearjerker, too, especially when you take into account bars like "Listen up 'cause here's the tea / You know, you really hurt my feelings / don't want to be your enemy / See? / You can't even look at me." There is a lot of hurt. There's a lot of anger there, but simultaneously, still a desire to connect and make things right. Now, as far as the last leg on this record goes, it is a bit of a mixed bag.

"Body Strong" is another track that heads in a piano ballad angle, but "Thankful" still blows it out of the water and does so with a better vocal performance and without instrumentation, it sounds like, I don't know, a musical monologue from a movie.

Then "Mama Song" is a very lovely dreamy house number with a great collective rhythm section, but it doesn't really leave much of an impression until its final leg. "BGM" does have much stronger writing and vocals, in my opinion, but this track sees Infinite Coles painting himself into a corner topically a bit at this point. While the closing track is far from the boldest of the bunch, I can see what it's doing conceptually in that it very much sounds like an ode to the catwalk. But if you could pull off such a thing in a way that's dreamy and ambient, almost like an ending credits type moment, you're going off slaying into the sunset.

But yeah, I mean, while this record is a little scant and it definitely starts a stronger than it finishes, I still came away from SweetFace Killah massively impressed with its rapping, with its singing, with its writing, with its production. How quick Infinite Coles was to get very personal and very intimate with what he was saying on this record with this newfound audience.

I do wonder where his sound has to grow from here, though, and what exactly future verses and songs might look like in terms of what topics they may approach. Sure, further developments on the fronts that this album is approaching will most likely be fine. Personal relationships and family always make for a treasure trove of writing material. But simultaneously, mostly focusing on that did lead to this album feeling a little one-dimensional.

Still, though, again, great first effort from Infinite Coles and really excited to see where things go from here, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong seven on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Infinite Coles. Forever.