Just over a year after his album TAKE was released, MINO is back with his third full-length album “TO INFINITY.” The rapper wrote the lyrics and composed all 10 tracks, with MINO also arranging half of them, and LILBOI, Gaeko, BOBBY, sogumm, and sunwoojunga feature on four tracks. No two tracks sound the same, each having their own identity and influences, like retro, country, acoustic, smooth jazz, and harder hip-hop. Honestly speaking, this may just be MINO at his best and most artistic yet.

The title track “TANG!♡” may be one of the least outwardly-sounding MINO tracks you can imagine, but it’s this shift in sound that hooks you in hard and fast. While the lyrics aren’t anything terribly different from songs we’ve heard in the past (crushing on a woman who avoids his awkward advances, with MINO lamenting he doesn’t know what to do), it’s the delivery of the lines and the music surrounding them that makes “TANG!♡” so good. The onomatopoeic and repeated, “TANG TANG TANG TANG,” chorus highlights the opening verse’s lines, where MINO mentions, after a brief bit of studying on how to get a reaction from his crush, that there’s “enough bullets”* and that he’s fired the metaphorical gun.

The music video for “TANG!♡” is just as enchanting as the track; it’s hard not to get wrapped up in what all MINO is doing as it opens with him in a messy apartment playing virtual reality video games before then showing this alternate life where he’s got money and luxury clothes, but the girl isn’t interested in any of that.

Like his previous releases, XX and TAKE, it’s truly the B-sides that shine, though. There’s a track for every mood, some more serious than others, and MINO’s experimentation with different styles will have you putting “TO INFINITY.” on repeat for weeks to come.

*Translation from music video subtitles