Song Review:: Sungjin (DAY6): 30- Check Pattern {Debut}

- November 08, 2024

Release date: 2024 November 05

Album tracklist: Covered in Love, Check Pattern, I don't wanna do anything, Nowhere You Are, as always, Wednesday Night, EASY, You Wake Me Up, I don't wanna lose, Memories

Album runtime: 33 minutes

Catch up time for me begins! DAY6 is having something of a surge right now, and I couldn't be happier for them. Which also makes it the perfect time for Sungjin to have his solo debut. If you're new here, welcome. I love debuts. If you're not, then you know how excited I get for debuts. The world of possibilities is at his feet. Any bad things in the future? They haven't happened yet. To quote my favorite book of all time, "Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?" Replace the word mistakes with misfortunes, and that sums up the beauty of debuts, even for established artists. It's all excitement and hope, the exhilaration of uncertain and something new. Debuts are so exciting.

And there's even a song over four minutes long on the album. That's nice. And if I may be permitted to make a slight joke about the album, of course he doesn't want to lose. He just said that he didn't want to do anything six songs earlier.

This feels like a soft rock ballad at its finest. These instrumentals could be behind a Bryan Adams song and I don't necessarily know that I'd hear the difference. The delicate piano that gets time to linger on its own at the beginning, while still peeking its nose out during other sections as a reminder of where the song started, is absolutely beautiful. It also finishes the song, and is a great example of how powerful the simple can be when used well. The rest of the instrumentals fortify the softness of the piano, but as energetic as they become, they never lose the sense of quiet that the piano brings.

His voice. Wow. He has some grit to his voice that I absolutely love, and there's a stunning belt shortly before the final chorus that throws his vibrato into sharp attention and gets cut off rather than fade, which is an interesting choice and does make me wonder a little how much that note is within his range. But the grit isn't omnipresent, which means he has enough control over his voice to be able to have those different textures being very obvious and clear depending on the circumstance in the song. I expect that level of control in a professional singer, especially one who's on his tenth year as a debuted, professional singer, but since I don't always hear evidence of it, it's nice to be able to identify it. Is he one of the vocalists of the group? I don't actually know, but if he isn't, the group should probably use his voice.

The car salesman meme is appropriate here because this music video can fit so much story in it! I just wanted them to hold hands! But, again, this is a shining example of how simplicity can be as powerful as complexity if it's used correctly.