A year after his solo comeback with Sugar, Kim Woo Seok (currently an inactive member of UP10TION) is officially back on stage with his 3rd mini-album, 3rd Desire (Reve), and title track Switch. This comeback also follows he continuation of his acting career through the recent drama Bulgasal: Immortal Souls.

Switch is another decently pleasant track. Nothing overly memorable or special about it, but it isn’t terrible. It just a pleasant track. There is a fair bit out of Switch that I personally enjoy, but I enjoy them more as standalone elements than in a whole song. Just thinking about that is a bit abstract, but that is the best way I can describe my feelings about Switch. The pop instrumentation, particularly the rhythmic guitars, was the main driver of the pleasant description I gave to the song. It also gave the song a sleek profile throughout, which was a nice touch. As for Kim Woo Seok himself, his vocals were light and airy. I quite enjoyed the lightness. They aren’t the most riveting set of vocals ever, but they had a sweet and dreamy tone to it, which complimented the pleasantries of the instrumental. The melodies of the song were quite a strong point to Switch as well. The melody for the ‘It’s not fair, it’s a love affair‘ line was the strongest in this song, hypnotic in a way. It was an interesting direction for the song in general and I wished they explored more of it. But when you piece these good elements together, Switch comes off too light, too airy and too pleasant. And too much of these ended up making Switch forgettable, enabling for it to drifting away into the background. It is not something that you want from a title track. Switch needed something to ground it, and it should be something dynamic (e.g. more pronounced rock influences, particularly in the final chorus – you can hear something along the lines of this, but its just not fulfilling enough). I felt this dynamic energy was lacking in the song, and hence everything felt too one-sided. Had there been something to hold the song down and make it pop out more, I think Switch could have been more memorable.

I find the music video for this comeback to be suitable for the song. It is quite colourful and vibrant, in a way that fits the pleasant energy and tone of the song. Kim Woo Seok’s visuals are quite strong throughout the video. I did like the mix between animation and real life shot, as it brought some uniqueness to the video and visuals. However, aside from that, nothing else pings as memorable for me.

Again, there is nothing memorable coming from the performance, as well. But the choreography overall had a pleasant vibe to it, just like the other elements of this comeback. I can’t really fault this on Kim Woo Seok or the choreographer, simply because the song didn’t have any strong moments within it for them to really work with. At least, they did well with what they had.

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