D-CRUNCH made their debut in August of this year with Palace. Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to reviewing Palace. Luckily, D-CRUNCH announced their first comeback with Stealer and today will be having a closer look at Stealer. For those who don’t know the group, they are a 9-member male group under All-S Company. The members are Hyunwook,. Hyunho, O.V, Minhyuk, Hyunwoo, Hyunoh, Chanyoung, Jungseung and Dylan.

The first thing about the song that jumps out at me is its intensity. For a group with more rappers than vocalists, this intensity at the forefront of the song is expected. I like how they infused the electronic music genre with hip-hop but there were moments in the instrumental that felt exotic, reminding me of BLOCK B’s Nilli Mambo. And like Nilli Mambo, there were also moments that felt theatrical and grand. The many rappers bring an overwhelming rough texture to the song yet each of their sections is individualistic and this allows the intensity to grow exponentially. The vocalists also shine despite it being a rap-dominant song with their choruses and pre-choruses being clear and very melodic in a way that matches the rest of the song. Altogether, the song proves that this rookie group has potential and talent in a variety of domains.

The music video lives up to the music. The level of intensity of the song is matched by the edginess in the music video. I think there was a plotline to the video somewhere in the midst of all the choreography and closeup shots but it wasn’t easily decipherable due to its limited screen time (I think they were searching for something). Putting that aside, I thought the editing for this video was pretty cool. I liked how the transition matched the pre-chorus melody and instrumental moments. I like how dark the video felt, which goes back to that obvious edgy vibe. Maybe if they focused more on the plotline as the song does feel theatrical enough for one, the video would have had an extra level of appeal.

The choreography itself was quite good. But I couldn’t stop thinking that they could have done more. The performance I watched seemed to focus on live vocals (which were quite stable), so this limited the level of intensity their dance routine could of have. I wanted to see the torches on the stage as I thought their torch opener in the music video looked really cool but that was removed due to time limitations. If they managed to match the energy/ in the music video, I think this would have been a winning performance.

Song – 8/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 8/10