DAY6 is officially back with a new mini-album, The Book of Us: Negentropy, which also serves as the final part of their The Book of Us series. This comeback, headlined by the title track You make Me, is also the first comeback in almost a year to feature all the members. For those who may not remember, DAY6 announced a hiatus the day prior to their Zombie comeback. DAY6 briefly made a comeback in August of last year. However only YoungK, Wonpil and Dowoon participated, forming DAY6’s first subunit, Even of Day. Unfortunately, we still won’t be able to see the group as a whole. Firstly, the group and JYP Entertainment confirmed reports that they were not going to promote the release. And secondly, prior to this comeback. member Sungjin enlisted into the military in March. However, he was still part of the recording process of the album and music video.

What I really enjoyed about You make Me are the range of textures that we get in the instrumental. Every part of the song has something unique and different to the rest of the song, which makes for a complex mix. But it somehow comes together and creates an unexpectedly warm atmosphere. The synths from the keyboard in the pre-chorus, the clashing drums and the return of the glitchy keyboard instrumental sequence we get at the end of the first and last chorus with the ‘You. Make. Me.‘, and the clashing drums following the second chorus (underneath Sungjin’s ‘If I. Lose You. …‘). DAY6’s vocal department, once again, shines so brightly throughout You make Me. It isn’t their most powerful or robust release to date. In fact, the vocal work in this song is surprisingly subdued and doesn’t really reflect the energy put through by those climatic instrumental moments. But their vocal work is pretty solid and felt very fulfilling nonetheless. You can also detect a slight tinge of emotions behind their vocals, almost yearning in a way. So they aren’t completely soulless in in this song. Overall, I find You make Me a decent song to listen to and definitely ranks as it is, towards the top end of my rating spectrum. However, at the moment, You make Me feels like it is lacking something. I am not sure what this something is, but the song just has this hard-to-pinpoint incompleteness about it. It could be some vocals that go a step further than what they have, or a more bitey hook to give You make Me a better edge. You make Me is definitely presentable as it is, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it that extra bit more.

Not entirely sure what is happening in this music video. But with a bit of help from the YouTube comments, a theory is formed. The start made it look like he got in a fight and was badly injured. However, he still made it to his girlfriend who is waiting for him. The way she comes to hug him tells me that she hasn’t she hasn’t seen him for a while. They drive off into the distance and along a dark road, his injury starts to catch up to him. He swerves onto the wrong side of a road, causing his girlfriend to be alarmed. She realizes that he has been stabbed and has been bleeding while driving. When they stop, she simply shakes him to not pass out. At this point, I noticed how pale both of them got in this scene. So my guess is that they both died. She probably died a long time ago (hence she greeted him as such at the start of the video but we didn’t realize it at first). And he loses colour (and turns pales) as he drives, so I guess he just died or dies driving away. We see a glimpse of the beach with footprints leading into the ocean as he passes out, before he wakes up in the car and shows her his bandaged wounds. He smiles, while she slaps softly him for causing her alarm. My guess is that he was dead all along. The bandaged wounds were probably some sort of representation of healing wounds as one commenter said (credit goes to Pen cil), as the song (and album series) is all about different emotions. They continue driving until they reach the beach, where they enjoy each others company away from the rest of the world. The beach, based on his vision when he passed out earlier, is probably a representation of the afterlife which to two enjoy together. After putting a story together, the video feel quite nice. I really like the warm and dark tones in the video, representing each stage of life shown in the video (i.e. death and afterlife). I wished the music video had some sort of electronic component to bring that part of the song to life. I am not talking flashy animations or massive LCD screens. More like light strobes behind the members as they perform with their instruments. I think that would fit the aesthetic of the video.

Song – 8.5/10
Music Video – 9/10
Overall Rating – 8.7/10