Song Review:: XEED: Blue- Blue

• Release date: 2023 August 01

• Album tracklist: Blue, With U, You&I, Hold my hand, Priceless

• Album runtime: 17 minutes

 On slower days like this, I like to find a random release and review it because there are so many albums that have released even in just the last two months when I've been writing these reviews. This one seems old comparatively speaking, but I feel weird having just NINE.i on the page for previous releases. And yes, I know that in a couple of months, I'll be moving the four months of reviews for 2024 to the page there, but that still leaves NINE.i as the outlier. So! I grabbed a random release from the same month as that album. I'm not sure I've even heard of this group, so I'm looking forward to doing this.

Ah. That's why. 

This is one of the short-lived groups. Debuted December of 2022, disbanded this last April, so not even eighteen months. Well, given how I got into K-Pop, I'm not going to turn them away, because they deserve to be remembered, even if they had only a short time as a group together. Doha. Shun. Bao. Jaemin. Uo.

Oh! They have/had a member who was a backup dancer for ONF and Stray Kids, who performed with them on Road to Kingdom and Kingdom respectively! That's cool! And a couple who were trainees for a very long time, or were in groups before this. 

It seems that the algorithm already thought I'd like this song and this group because I found it in my "I'll get to listening to these songs eventually" playlist. I'm going to be sad after this review, aren't I? Oh, well. Can't be helped.

There's a very strong beat to the song which supports the vocals, but also never prevents the song from being a warm, summer song. There's an instrument in there that sounds a lot like a metal garbage can lid of the DIY drum variety, which definitely lends to the sense of fun and spontaneity present in the song. Honestly, my favorite part of the instrumentals is that weird metal sound. It's unlike anything I've heard from K-Pop before and reminds me of street performances in New York specifically. It's not a 1:1 comparison, but there's enough there that I feel comfortable making the comparison. 

Their voices either naturally match the laidback vibes of the song well, or they did a good job of getting their voices to match it. I don't think it really matters much. What does matter is they aren't incongruent with the sound of the instrumentals. It's a little high, which makes me worried a little for their live performances, but they have enough lower parts to the song that as long as the choreography allows the vocalists to have a little bit of a pause for the really high parts, it should be okay. I also really like the way the vocals got layered over themselves. But my favorite part? The rapper. He sounds a lot like Bobby from iKon, and the rhythm and tone of his rap are chill and tropical I picture beaches and cocktails with paper umbrellas and a wedge of pineapple.

I'm actually really impressed with the costuming. The obvious shades of blue and white match those flowers, and various other elements of the background like the hammock and the glass of the abandoned building. The lighting change that coincided with another costume, one that highlighted individuality like the costumes in the field rather than keeping them together in the same color. And the choreography is so cool! There isn't much of a story, but it is pretty.

I hope they get another chance if they want it. In the mean time, I hope they have peace over whatever happened.