EP Review: ‘Nep’s Storybook’ by Nep

The EP starts off strong with the energetic track ‘Lovelace’. Taking Simon & Garfunkel as an inspiration, their influence is apparent in this incredibly catchy song. Its descriptive lyrics take us right to the feelings of excitement and new love while getting to know the narrator and their parents, over acoustic guitar and drums as well as layered voices, whistling noises and bells to make this a song bustling with energy. 

Intriguingly named ‘A Big Brown Dog Named Bagel’, this next track keeps the same energetic drums but switches the guitar to electric ones. Going back and forth between slow vocals with minimal instrumentals in the long verses, to full energy in the explosive choruses. The dog named Bagel in question is a dog whom the narrator envisions buying together with the person she is in love with, which this whole song is about, again being very descriptive to really tell the story. 

Following is ‘Flower Girl’, which is a completely different-sounding song to the previous songs again. It has clear jazz influences both in the vocals and the instrumentals, which are mostly made up of strings. These strings quieten and swell up again multiple times throughout the song, while Nep sings about stealing a bride away from a wedding. The musical elements only strengthen this setting, where the listener can easily imagine a fancy wedding setting in a ballroom of some sort and the drama that ensues when the narrator sings about being in love with the bride. A song similar in sound to this one is ‘Eat It Too’, displaying a jazzy sound again by opening with a piano and continuing with cymbals and slow trumpets. ‘Eat It Too’ is about Nep’s experience being demisexual, and the disconnect between romantic and sexual attraction, ingeniously questioned with the line “Do the birds and bees fall asleep for me?”. 

In between songs, the EP has various shorter tracks that function more as interludes but still manage to keep themselves interesting in their variation, like the again jazz-influenced ‘Rocket Ship’ mostly made out of vocals and trumpets, ‘Teddy’ with its more distorted vocals and acoustic guitar, and the shortest track of them all, ‘Coffee Gives Me Energy’, which repeats this phrase a few times before serving us electronic, video game soundtrack-like quick instrumentals. This variation in interludes matches perfectly with the great variation that is found on the EP.

Some slower songs are ‘Doc’ and ‘Pup’. The rhythmic ‘Doc’ sang over just plucking on acoustic guitar is a sweet love song. ‘Pup’ starts similarly with acoustic guitar, but as the song progresses the vocals become more distorted, screaming and scratching sounds are added in. For these, you may need to turn down your headphone volume, but it forms an interesting contrast, talking about hating someone’s guts but deep down still wanting to be with them, and through the intense distortion in the music this desperation can be felt.

The more expressive energy picks back up with the songs ‘Cottontail’ and ‘Fender’. 

‘Cottontail’ is a love song in adorable nature metaphors, “If your name were River, I’d legally change mine to a nature-related term like Fern, so I could be the grasses sitting by you” The bridge sounds like a crowd of people yelling and spelling out the word cottontail, which adds to the overall joyous feeling of this song. ‘Fender’ is similarly expressive and energetic, but has more of a rock influence with its electric guitars and harsher sounding vocals. 

The EP ends on the most intriguing track of them all: the double-voice track ‘Mr Carter/Milk Town’. Two stories are told at the same time: one about a strange town called Milk Town and its characteristics, and one about a couple called the Carters and the insinuation of a relationship with this couple. One has to pay close attention to follow one or the other voice as they are singing right through each other to get a sense of the story, which makes this a very interesting listen and a strong closer to the EP.

The name Nep’s Storybook truly does the EP justice, introducing us to all kinds of intriguing characters and their stories. The creative yet descriptive lyrics successfully manage to take the listener along in the storybook, while keeping everyone hooked with a mix of genres and interesting musical elements, continuously surprising with what is next. Due to this variability, the overall work can feel a bit chaotic, but every song on its own works incredibly well, which is why it makes sense that this 12-song work is regarded as a collection of stories, and the shorter interludes do a great job at pulling the work together a bit more too. Overall, this debut EP displays Nep’s great talent for both storytelling and knowing which musical elements to use to enhance these stories, touching upon various genres and influences.