The Essex based Black Milk collective bring a musically and lyrically fresh approach to the consistently under-achieving genre that is UK hip hop. The Rakim-sampling The Competition is underpinned by a melancholy wash of strings with brave one's crisply enunciated rhymes cutting through the track's sweetly arranged instrumentation. The Pretender has a catchy, upbeat piano hook which lends the track an optimistic, daisy age feel, well reflected in Brave One's attack on egos and oversize male libidos and his observation that it's 'not a black thing or a white thing / just something that might bring / us back together / to stop all the fighting and biting and smiting each other'. This is one of those records that makes you feel better about the state of hip hop in this country and should see Big Teeth joining the ranks of the up and coming labels which might just push the sound into the mainstream where it belongs.