Month: July 2021

[Album Review] MO’ COMPLETE: HAVE A DREAM (4th Mini Album) – AB6IX

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As I have mentioned on my blog several time this week, I will be focusing my effort on reviewing albums this week. This is all in a bid to help me catch up on the many albums that I should have reviewed weeks (or months, in some cases) ago. First up on this album review influx is AB6IX’s 4th mini-album, MO’ COMPLETE: HAVE A DREAM. The mini-album was released alongside their title track, Close, at the end of April, which makes this album review two months over due (sorry!). This release follows their 3rd mini-album, which was later repackaged into Salute: A New Hope (headlined by the title track Stay Young). As you can imagine, I have a lot more work to do. So let’s just get right to the album review.

Album cover for MO’ COMPLETE: HAVE A DREAM, AB6IX's fourth mini-album. The album is rather simple, with a pale teal background and all writing in a cream colour.
MO’ COMPLETE: HAVE A DREAM Album Cover

1. HEADLINE – HEADLINE opens up the album with bold sounds, via its use of bass, house elements and funky influences in the instrumental. It is a great opener and sets up the album on a very positive note. When it comes to the vocals, they quite strong, which is suitable for the song. It brings it on par with the instrumentation. The melodies and hooks in this song are also quite catchy. I wish the rapping had a bit more oomph to it. I do like Woojin’s technique, but I think his section could have gone further than what it did, in terms of energy and dynamism. (8/10)

2. CLOSE (Title Track) – Click here to read the full review for CLOSE. (8/10)

3. LULULALA – Next up is LULULALA, a pop track that feels just right for the summer season. Aside from being upbeat and fun sounding (which is everything you want in a summer song), the song is also a great platform to showcase the vocals from each of the members. In particular, Lee Daehwi’s vocals were superb in this song, working extremely well with the rock influences that made up the pop track. For me, this is my favourite song on the album. I liked the rapping here, as opposed to the first song, as it worked well with the rest of the song. (9/10)

4. MERRY-GO-ROUND – MERRY-GO-ROUND continues the same sound from the previous song. But it isn’t as energetic and as Summery as the previous song. The song tones down that energy and this gives off a very standard type of feel. While I do like the energy that the electronic influences in the instrumental especially when we got to the chorus, there isn’t really much to the song in terms of appeal. As a result, I put MERRY-GO-ROUND as the weakest song on the album. But that being said, it was still a decent song to listen to. (7/10)

5. A LONG WINTER – A LONG WINTER is probably the outlier on the album. It takes form as a R&B song, with a rock band instrumental. This in particular was a highlight for the song, as it spoke to my personal tastes. It was also nice to ease out the album this way, which was full of energy. A LONG WINTER had a good showcase of vocals and rapping, as well. Overall, a soothing ender to the album. (8/10)

Overall Album Rating – 8/10

AB6IX poses in white shirts whilst brushing their teeth in this teaser image for the release of MO’ COMPLETE: HAVE A DREAM.
MO’ COMPLETE: HAVE A DREAM Teaser Image

[Review] Hello Future – NCT DREAM

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Also making their comeback on Monday is NCT Dream (apologies for the long delays in getting this review out). The NCT subunit unveiled their latest title track, Hello Future, and the group’s first ever repackaged album which shares the same name as title track. Hello Future follows the release of Hot Sauce (both title track and name of the group’s first ever mini-album). The full-length album featuring both Hello Future and Hot Sauce will be reviewed tomorrow as part of the Album Review focus this weekend. In preparation for that, I will need to write my full review for Hello Future, so here are my thoughts on their new song.

Hello Future finds that middle ground between their very youthful tracks that they began their careers with and their more mature sound that they have opted for in their more recent releases. How so? Well, the pop instrumentation that sits in the background gives off a refreshing and pleasant vibe that feels like a throwback to those early days. And it feels like a great Summer track, overall. Hello Future may not start off in this manner (thanks to that deep gurgling-like effect), but it does give off such impressions when we get to the chorus. It actually took me a few repeats to warm up to the opening verse because of that gurgling-like effect in the background, but getting through it to reach the chorus was definitely worthwhile (more on this in second). In addition to the youthful reminder via the instrumentals, the groups vocals in both rapping and singing brings forward that matureness. Compared to their early releases, NCT Dream’s voices (particular the rappers) have gotten pretty deep, which I assume is the reason why NCT Dream ended up going down the mature route of KPOP releases. For Hello Future, I liked how they capitalised on this unavoidable change. The singing vocals brought this insane level of smoothness to the song and kept the song grounded in a positive manner. The melodies we hear in the chorus are so captivating and stunning, and this is all thanks to the vocalists in NCT Dream. For the rappers of the group, their sequences provided some interesting contrast that made the song memorable and well-balanced. In particular, the sequences we get after the second chorus have the song some nice brief punches of intensity, which acted as a superb offset to the song’s pleasantness. But while Hello Future is an awesome song already, I do feel that the song had opportunities to be more dynamic, especially when it came to the ad-libs at the end of the song. It felt pretty safe and ‘in the box’. What they needed was to venture out of the confines of said box to ensure this song hit a home run. But as of now, it was still a very enjoyable song from the group.

To me, the group are portrayed as hippies in this music video. From their outfits, to the ‘natural’ accessories, to the peace signs we see on their posters and signs, everything felt very influenced by the hippies we associate from the 60s. Note that everything has been modernise to fit this era. I doubt hoodies and sweatpants were the 60s hippies go to attire. But I think this was a smart concept for the group to follow through with. The song’s message was ‘overcoming struggles to grow together with love and trust’ (taken from Soompi) which is a very hippie type of messaging. And they did so by crashing a very competitive Soccer game, bringing the two teams together to join them in their pursuit for love and trust.

I really enjoyed the choreography for this comeback. It might not be their best work out there, but I feel like it was a good fit for the song. I liked the incorporation of – what I like to call – the royal hello (cupped hand and a slight turn of the wrist). I also liked their ending sequence, which brought a rush of intensity to end of the song with. This is a nice example of contrast, as I note their choreography beforehand was quite slow and mellow looking. But this intense rush at the end reminded us that the performance was a NCT performance nonetheless.

Song – 9/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 8.5/10
Overall Rating – 8.6/10

[Review] PTT (Paint The Town) – LOONA

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And I am back to finally review the rest of the week’s releases before I move onto focusing on album reviews this coming weekend. First up is LOONA’s latest comeback, PTT (Paint The Town), which officially dropped on Monday. This is the group’s first comeback since their quite addictive Why Not? comeback back in October 2020. PTT is featured on the group’s fourth mini-album [&] and also marks the return of Haseul, who has been absent from LOONA’s lineup since the release of So What due to mental health issues. Welcome back to Haseul and LOONA! In other related news, LOONA will be gearing up for their Japanese debut, with a Japanese version of PTT released alongside this comeback on Monday as well.

PTT is a bold release, incorporating Indian instrumentation with ‘aggressive dubstep and 808 bass sounds’. While we have heard of foreign influences in KPOP songs in the past, I don’t think any were really featured as prominently as PTT had. It definitely helped create a dynamic atmosphere that was quite alluring and catchy. The song opened with this (what I presume is an) Indian chant before we are introduced a full suite of traditional instrumentation. Some of this traditional instrumentation retained as we move along into the verse (i.e. the tabalas), which is also accented with pounding percussion that strengthened the energy and appeal of the song. As we move closer to the chorus, the hip-hop side profile of the song emerges through the melody, along with the electronic touches mentioned above and the occasional appearance of some traditional instrumentation detailing. This buildup to the chorus felt very clean and felt logical to bridge the verse and chorus. For the chorus, the aggressiveness of the dubstep dominates the first half of the chorus with the Indian touches taking more of a backseat allowing that aggressive nature to appear. It playing field switches in the second half of the chorus, with the Indian instrumental elements emerging from the darkness and the aggressive nature takes a more subtle approach. For the second verse, I liked the boldness of their rapping. The instrumental for this part works well with the rest of the song and doesn’t break the flow of the song, like in some other songs. For the bridge of the song, the slowdown was nice and allowed for Chuu’s high note to pull the song back up to the final chorus, which really hit the song home. Haseul’s vocals in the bridge was also a highlight. Elsewhere, the vocals in PTT were really good and continued to show that clear and crisp vocals that the group has been showing us in their releases. To me, the reason to why PTT is not a perfect song is the chorus. While I did like the instrumentation as I had mentioned above, I felt it was rather weak. The ‘Latatata‘ they went with was pretty dry, bland and didn’t add momentum to the song, as I would have expected a powerful chorus to. It did have some catchiness to it, but I don’t think it was nearly as much as it could have been. I also feel like it didn’t match the aggressive nature of the chorus, which resulted in the chorus feeling rather disappointing. Overall, I think PTT was a strong song from the group. But what should have been the song’s centrepiece was lacking.

While the aesthetic of the music video is reflective of what we have seen from LOONA since So What, it also brings visual elements of their predebut unit releases and their animal representations that formed part of their pre-debut package back into play. And this is all alongside what I am guessing is a new story. But while it is always great to get back in touch with your roots, the music video for PTT is quite overwhelming to watch. There was just so much going on. Maybe when I have some more time, I will try to figure out what this new story is and how it relates to their predebut works. Until then, I will only make comments on the visual display we saw. PTT has some really bold imagery and this imagery works extremely well with the music. The choreography shots, especially when it came to the more aggressive side of the choruses, really honed in that aggressive imagery with the dark and stormy atmosphere and angry colour choices. On the flipside, the verses feature more calming and innocent colours (i.e. white and yellow) to match with the song’s vibes during such parts. And the solo shots of each member we see shows off their beauty really well.

To reflect well with the music, the choreography is quite powerful and artistic at the same time. I don’t think this is their best work but it was still quite great to watch! I really liked the domino effect they had in the second half of the chorus (i.e. one line of members performed first, then the second performed the first set of moves when the first line of members were on their second move etc.), which made that section look really nice.

Song – 8/10
Music Video – 7/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 7.7/10