Once upon a time, I used to album reviews on Tuesdays. Usually, the album reviews published on Tuesday are reserved for a bit of a throwback. I cover ‘past’ albums for the year prior to the year we are in. Because of my poor sleeping patterns, I haven’t been able to do that. And now that I am overloaded with albums to review from October (and most likely November and December), I have decided to cancel the ‘past album review’ segment for now (it will be back next year) and use Tuesdays to help recover on the album review front of the blog. Today’s focus is on Golden Child’s second single album and title track, Pump It Up, which was released over a month ago. The song has become an instant favourite of mine and it has gone on to top my Weekly KPOP Charts.

1. Pump It Up (Title Track) – Click here to read the full review for Pump It Up. (9/10)

2. That Guy – That Guy is more a pop ballad. My first impression of the song is that is almost on par with LADY, one of the group’s most memorable side tracks for me. The instrumental is made up of atmospheric strings and pop percussion. It is actually quite beautiful, to the point where I wouldn’t mind listening to it alone without the vocals. Oh and the vocals. There are equally as stunning. Joochan and Y’s lines in the chorus are the song’s highlight without the doubt. I wished that That Guy had stronger melodic power (like LADY) and that pretty much would have brought it up to the same level as the mentioned song. But we almost got there. I also liked how they delayed the ad-libs so it was more to the end. I felt that was a missing element at the start of the final chorus, but they delivered it down the track. And the rapping was also quite nice, tweaked well to fit the softer nature of the song. (9/10)

3. Lean On Me (너의 뒤에서) – Lean On Me is an upbeat electronic pop dance track. It too almost rivals a song, in particular the title track of this single album. It didn’t surpass Pump It Up because it lacked a bit of vibrancy. It is really the one thing that really set the two tracks apart for me. I feel that if the producers made the song pop out more, it could pretty much have been the title track. Once again, the vocals are quite nice in this song. They were very consistency throughout, which isn’t always a bad thing. I really liked that the rapping follows the chorus. It is applied to the same instrumental as the chorus, so it feels like an extension of the chorus – prolonging the song’s catchiest sequence. (9/10)

Overall Album Rating – 9/10