NF – FEAR (Album Review)

NF’s “FEAR” delivers another gripping emotional journey, blending heartfelt vocals with hard-hitting rap that leaves listeners feeling fully seen and satisfied.


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TOP 3 TRACKS

3. GIVE ME A REASON

Joyner Lucas, is that you?

For anyone who thought NF had fully gone pop, this track kicks open the door like a SWAT raid. “GIVE ME A REASON” is energized, loud, and brimming with fast-twitch rap muscle, the kind that makes him sound like a white version of Stromile Swift dunking all over a 10-day contract player. The production is aggressive and slightly trap-leaning, setting him up to vent about feeling distant from the days when hunger and hardship pushed him to rap like his life depended on it. This is the NF many fans have been dying to hear again.

2. WHO I WAS

Exciting whites dominate this track.

mgk goes off here—dropping what might be a quiet triple-double. “WHO I WAS” rides a stripped-down instrumental that gives both artists room to bleed openly. mgk raps about losing friends, detaching from toxicity, and picking up the pieces after the well-publicized Megan Fox breakup. It’s raw, flawed, and human. NF counters with two vocal modes: a delicate, self-aware cadence and a more jagged, frustrated delivery that reflects his inner tug-of-war. Together, the track becomes a relatable study of identity, loss, and self-correction.

1. HOME

NF is better than 97% of the singers who call themselves singers.

“HOME” might be FEAR’s emotional centerpiece. Built around frantic, lonely guitar licks that sound like they were recorded on the same deserted island Tom Hanks befriended Wilson on, the track is intimate but cinematic. NF pours himself into the vocals—melancholic and aching at first, then rising into something fiery and desperate. Lyrically, the song circles around the idea of possibly saying goodbye to someone on the verge of walking away, yet holding onto every scrap of hope he can find. It is stunning, heartfelt, and absolutely Billboard-ready.


SONG BY SONG RATING

1. FEAR (4/5)

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Check out the individual track ratings we gave—these are what we used to calculate the overall score!


RGM RATING

(85%)

NF returns with FEAR, a deeply vulnerable body of work that peels back more layers than we’ve ever seen from him. Across the album, he wades into topics like lost love, mental health, emotional isolation, and the shifting landscapes of success and identity. It’s an NF album that feels both familiar and newly daring, balancing stripped-down honesty with cinematic intensity.

From a production standpoint, FEAR leans into alternative flourishes, explosive rhythmic switches, and acoustic textures that feel hand-picked to amplify its emotional gravity. Interestingly, NF spends more time singing here than he ever has. His vocals—gentle, stirring, and open—sometimes sound like Ed Sheeran’s backup quarterback warming up on the sidelines, ready to launch something unexpectedly beautiful.

Of course, NF doesn’t leave longtime fans starving for bar-heavy energy. “GIVE ME A REASON” and “WASHED UP” find him fully activated, rapping with the urgency and aggression that marked his earlier catalog. For someone who’s a fan of his, these were the moments I enjoyed the most.

One thing about NF—you never walk away from one of his albums feeling underserved. FEAR presses every emotional button on your heart and soul, blending deeply moving vocals with gritty, hard-hitting rap in a way that feels both complete and cathartic.


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This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Ethan Garrett

    Amazing take. Don’t forget the number of layers that were worked into the album when it came to connecting his story all around. NF wrote an album, Mansion, and the album’s songs explain that the mansion is a metaphor for the walls he’s built around his brain, which is the owner of the mansion. In the last verse of the song, NF explains how he let fear into his mansion (head). The cure to fear is hope, and NF explains how he was actively looking for the map to hope in his song/album “The Search”. NF finds the map to hope in the song/album “Hope”. This EP is a sequel to all of that, and describes NF’s war between choosing fear, which has been in his head for years, or getting rid of the fear and letting the hope in. To get the amazing life that comes with having hope, you have to let the hope get rid of the fear. NF’s take on that is in the song Mansion:

    “Now I’m in a position, it’s either sit here and let [him/fear] win
    Or put him back outside where he came from, but I never can
    ‘Cause in order to do that, I’d have to open the doors
    Is that me or the fear talking? I don’t know anymore.”

    All of this evolved with the song fear, ESPECIALLY within the music video, and let me add that the quality of production and cinematography within that video was beyond exceptional. NF writes the song fear to continue the narrative he’s wrote through his other songs/albums like I explained above, but every other song on this EP are songs he’s been fearful to release because he used to be really concerned with critics but found hope and now doesn’t care. The amount of perfection within this whole thing (fueled by NF’s perfectionism OCD) HAS to be recognized because it is utterly and truly amazing, outstanding, and very deserving of every award possible.

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