The next album review on the blog this week is for Golden Child’s sixth mini-album since their debut, AURA, which was released in August of this year. This mini-album features the title track Replay, an intro track and 4 additional side tracks. AURA follows the group’s Japanese debut and first comeback, the military enlistment of Daeyeol and the group’s Korean releases of Ra Pam Pam and DDARA from last year.

It comes as no surprise to me (and it honestly should not be any surprise to any of you) that Golden Child has put out another strong album with AURA, as evident by the extremely high rating I gave the mini-album at the end of this post. I really enjoyed every track on the mini-album – from the title track to the intro track (and everything that follows these two tracks). Both AURA and Golden Child deserves more attention!

1. AURA – The mini-album starts off with a very elegant but mature sounding instrumental piece. It builds up from deliberately slow and paced beat, infusing some electronic synths and brief flute work into the instrumental, but peaking with crunchy vibration at the very end. It is definitely moody throughout and sets the scene for the rest of the mini-album.

2. Replay (Title Track) – Click here to read the full review for Replay. (9.5/10)

3. Knocking On My Door – My high hopes for this Golden Child album release comes to fruition with Knocking On My Door. It is the song that made certain that the mini-album would find a place on the agenda for an album review. I love the seamless flow of this track, and the consistently dynamic chorus. The brightness from the synths did the song a solid, giving the song a very refreshing and breezy feel. The rapping added a nice and palatable touch of textures. But it is the vocals that left me most impressed with Knocking On My Door. Y and Joochan’s vocals in the chorus were amazing, and the ad-libs we got at the end just sealed the deal to make this track one of the album’s highlight. (10/10)

4. 3! 6! 5! – 3! 6! 5! ups the energy exponentially with this fun and very vibrant track. Without a doubt, it fits into the summer season just perfectly. And it is incredibly hard to not dance to this song whilst listening to it and I always a find a wide smile on my face following a listen to this song. The harmonies give 3! 6! 5! so much boldness, while the rapping added such a fitting level of edginess and grooviness to the song, all at the same time. And the hooks in the song are so catchy and so easy to get into. Another undeniable highlight. (10/10)

5. Purpose – Purpose starts off as a much softer track, as opposed to the song preceding it. The melodies and verses frames the song as a mid-tempo pop song. But the choruses of Purpose ended up being quite impactful with the combination of the pop and heavy synths. The synths almost overwhelm the vocals, in my opinion. But the vocalists just manage to push through and stay on top. They do sound nice, but I think a bit of refinement would have helped Purpose a lot. I quite like the rapping in this track, especially in the second verse when there wasn’t any backing to the rapping. (8/10)

6. Miracle (완벽해) – The mini-album ends with a glitchy EDM dance track. This brings the energy of the album right back up, and possibly to new highs on this mini-album when the instrumental is most relentless. The choruses were decent, and I liked how the melodies/vocals kept the song grounded. I kind of wished the hooks in the chorus were a bit more memorable, but what we were presented is definitely fine enough. The rapping in the second verse was super cool and gave off a super edgy feel. The verses settled for some less crunchy synths and a funky underlying bass – both leads well into the choruses. (8.5/10)

Overall Album Rating – 9.2/10