Shinhwa has returned with their 13th album since debut. The album itself was released in two parts. The first part was released back in October 2016, as Unchanging Part 1 – Orange. The second part, released on the 5th of January 2017, comprises of all the songs released as part of Unchanging Part 1 – Orange and five new songs, including Touch, the title track for this album.
I am a little torn about the track. Once again, it is a track that doesn’t really appeal to me vocally. Honestly, that aspect is quite forgettable. But the track does stand out for other reasons. The EDM based instrumental is something that the boys haven’t really done before. It’s modern and trendy, suiting the current times. Going hand-in-hand with the instrumental is the structure of the song. The main reason why the instrumental does stand out is that there is no chorus to the song. Instead, the beat drops and we get a very complicated but powerful instrumental break each time. It is a little different, but it isn’t the first time an unconventional song structure has caught my attention (Check out Rainbow’s Black Swan). That being said, with no chorus, the song felt empty and did lack that hook. While the instrumental breaks were interesting, they didn’t do much to fill that empty void that the chorus would have filled from the start. Half of me is disappointed for that reason, but the other half did fall for that uniqueness.
The first thing I noticed after watching the video for the first time is that the video is very slow. I understand the slowness during the verses of the song because the verses are slow. But the scenes for the instrumental breaks are just too slow. Those parts sound almost as if it is choppy, fast-paced and impactful. But the video didn’t match those feelings. The majority of the video consist of the guys acting sad and heartbroken. There really isn’t anything to complain about there, but it does make the video become more boring if I was to continually watch it. There were a few scenes added where they act a little angry (with the now cliché ‘slow-motion-of-the-object-made-out-glass-smashing-on-the-floor’ or the ‘damage-the-mirror-somehow-and-stare-into-a-cracked-mirror’). But like the instrumental breaks, they don’t do much when it came to captivating me. The anger I guess ended up being a little more extreme by the end of the video. The guy burning the letter from his lover ends up burning his house out and the guy who lied in the bath tub (which again is in the middle of the room) completely flooded the room.
The dance looks cool and very precise. It matches the beat of the song really well. I have to admit, though, it does look pretty slow and lazy (at the instrumental breaks). The dance doesn’t really peak until the end of the song during the two solo parts. But still, the dance looked cool nonetheless.
Song – 6/10
Music Video – 5/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 5.5/10
KPOPREVIEWED 