At first I wanted to write about 2 albums, 2 singles and two EPs each week, but this time I have 1 single, 2 EPs and 1 album. I kinda like the flexibility here though. We’ll see where it goes.
Singles:
tripleS Glow - Inner Dance
TripleS is a fascinating project for the seemingly endless possibilities of units and steady stream of strong music we’ve gotten from each iteration. Inner Dance focuses on another new unit of members, and the song is very much in conversation with NewJeans with its smooth miami bass beats. It has some pleasant melodies and the member’s voices fit really smoothly into the instrumental, but the chorus never goes far enough for me to have it stand out. With many groups playing with these types of mellow R&B sounds, this could slip away from sight. There’s still some promise here though, so here’s to hoping it can be more realized the next time Glow comes around.
Mini-Albums:
WOOAH - Unframed
WOOAH’s Blush became a sneaky contender for my K-pop song of the year lists, a list that I will totally make and not slack on until I forget about it. The bright Jersey club inspired instrumental and cutesy hook latched onto me hard after repeated listens, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they were going to have a proper mini-album after Blush’s release in hopes they would expand on the sound. Except they mostly don’t. The closest thing to Blush on here is the song immediately following it on the tracklist, and it’s a cover of a DXMON song that came out a month ago! It’s a good cover, but screams laziness on their company SSQ Entertainment’s behalf to stick it on here. The rest of the songs here are okay, I’m really digging the 2010’s radio-pop vibes on Polaroid, but it all ends up feeling so uneven. WOOAH feels like a group that doesn’t quite know where it wants to be in 2024. It’s totally fine to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks but it didn’t end up in the most finely tuned product here. I’ll still recommend this off Polaroid and Blush alone, but I want to see a clearer vision from SSQ on the next comeback.
H1-KEY - LOVE or HATE:
H1-KEY’s third mini-album starts off on a very effective note with the soaring throwback pop-rock of the single Let It Burn. Let It Burn is a bait-and-switch of a single, as none of the other songs here reach back to those sounds, but we do get some very nice R&B cuts that are hard to take offense to. Love Letter is my favorite of the four songs, the vocal melodies on the chorus under that chill 2-step instrumental are lovely, and the string-led outro is gorgeous! I love the strings all throughout Iconic too, and closer Rainfalls continues at much the same pace as the last two tracks but with some nice guitars that I wish were a little more prominent. It’s a relaxing little EP that won’t give much you haven’t heard before, but does what it wants to do quite well.
Albums:
tipToe. - lighthouse
tipToe has been reliably one of my favorite idol groups in the underground since I started getting into the industry, with their debut album Magic Hour being essential in molding my taste in pop music going forward. Sadly, like plenty of the other groups that ushered me into the idol landscape, their time is running out too before their breakup next month. Thankfully they’re leaving us with one more album as a parting gift. My Long Prologue, the only single I heard in advance of the album, is a great opener that’s giving “battle shounen anime opening” with its heart racing chorus, pounding drums and almost emo-pop guitar melodies. A lot of songs on lighthouse don’t feel too different from the mainstream j-pop and j-rock sounds that find themselves interwoven into other groups, but it’s all pulled together with such conviction and heart that it ends up working. There’s still little tricks mixed throughout like the off-kilter blend of piano, keys and guitar distortion sprinkling down like raindrops towards the end of Before the Last Dawn that kept me on my toes as well. While I would’ve liked more moments like that on here, lighthouse is still a strong final chapter in one of my favorite idol groups, one that I’ll be pleased to keep with me into the future just like all of their other releases.