Song Review:: M.O.N.T: Somewhere Out There- OMW

-

  •  Release date: 2024 January 04
  • Album runtime: 9 minutes

 First review I'm doing from the new year! Congrats, M.O.N.T! I'm a little surprised that the three of them are doing it, considering Bitsaeon is in B.D.U right now, so I hope he doesn't overwork himself. But as this is one of my groups I have bookmarked some worry for, I'm just happy to see them putting out any music in general.

Starting off with the guitar like this is great, but the almost immediate gentling is a little funny. The song is definitely high energy without being abrasively or aggressively so. The screaming guitar was a nice touch, and is actually mimicked by one of the trio that's singing. Unexpected softness to the instrumental, which is a little fascinating to hear because this should be the opposite on paper. Those sound contradictory, and, yes, realistically they are but somehow the song works remarkably well despite the inherent contradictions. 

There are some songs that are comfortably cheerful. Their energy is effortless, and it's easy to smile along with them. This is not one of them. The cheerfulness of this song feels like a fight. I don't know that it's quite up to the same standard as ominous optimism, but there's something about the song that is hard-won. Their voices range from the big and bold to the soft and almost mournful. It's a good spread to be hearing.

Well. That is a singularly appropriate song for the new year. The instrument use is cute. The general malaise at the beginning was something that I immediately felt in my soul. There's no choreography to the song, but there is rocking out on instruments, and the lack as well as the limited and reasonable set locations gives the song a grounded feel that steadies and seems to say "I see you. I hear you."


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greatest Hits:: Girls' Generation: FOREVER1

-
Image
 I ran into this music video quite by accident, did some mental calculations, and decided this would be a good next choice for this segment. This is also one that I've already recommended to introduce people to K-Pop, so independent of the random selection, I obviously do consider this to be one of Girls' Generation's Greatest Hits. The group itself is also one of The Groups, one of the titans of the second generation, so one can hardly doubt the influence they've had on the industry. And most recently, their debut song has become an anthem, so, again, it's hard to argue against this influence that's stretched for almost twenty years now. In terms of the length of influence, this song barely  qualifies for a Greatest Hits post as it's barely two years old, but it qualifies by that requirement and the title track requirement. Also, excitingly, the album this comes from marked the end of a five year hiatus for the group and was released to celebrate their fift...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: fromis_9: Fly High

-
Image
This is the second time that fromis_9 has left a company, and while part of me is sad about this, I'm wishing them well in their future endeavors and hope they can find a new home that will treat them well and as they deserve. So, in honor of this, I'm going to go back to 2019 shortly after debut when they were still at their first company and their single, FUN FACTORY, and one of the b-sides contained therein.  This is a song sung by only two of the members, Jiwon and Hayoung, but they also have credits as the writers! The talent! It's such a pretty song. Also, their composing composing team is called "Dam-Dam," which I also think is kind of cute, and this was the first song that they did together. This is very much a summer kind of song and the irony that I'm doing this in winter is not lost on me, but it's summer somewhere, so it's fine. It's also, as you can tell by the title, a song about hope and freedom, which again makes this singularly app...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides: B.A.P: Carnival

-
Image
 So this was actually suggested to me by multiple members of the fandom when I shared the Greatest Hits post for the title track,  Feel So Good,  with them. There's been enough time since I posted that (about a month) and there's been enough variation in the GH and BBS posts since then that this feels like a good time to post this. And that way, I can get this back to them finally, and it can stop sitting on my head screaming at me to do it. So, this is from the B.A.P's eponymous 2016 album, Carnival. You all are apparently getting very cheery songs right now. I don't know how much of it is me wanting cheerful songs, but aggressive cheerfulness can almost never go wrong. Honestly, the song feels like a finale song to a musical, where they're dancing down the middle of a street, with the others in the cast falling in behind while streamers and confetti rain down around them and the band is actually a marching band. It's just fun incarnate.  Every time I hear Ban...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: VIXX: VOODOO DOLL

-
Image
 This comes from my submission form, and it's the first one I'm doing from there! Whoo! I was going to put this off a little because I just did a 2012 debut for a Battle of the B-Sides post, but oh, well! I have a feeling that this one isn't like that song either, so I'm less worried about doing too much of the same. Variety, yes, but I can do what I want and the few songs I've already heard of theirs ( Chained Up is in many of my playlists) I've liked already. How much of that is because I know they're in the 2012 debut club, which automatically enters them into my category of groups I look upon favorably, I don't know. But I do know that even without that, what I've heard is very good. I've also heard some interesting and hilarious things about the group, and am curious to know if they're true or not. But! This submission came with the note that the submitter was pretty sure this song was VIXX's first win and that was why it was being ...
Read more

Song Review:: L5ST: Free Fall

-
Image
Release date: 2024 December 12 Album tracklist: Free Fall Album runtime: 4 minutes  When I tell you that I love this recently debuted group, I mean I love them . The debut review I did was full of surprised, instant love for them. Vocally, they remind me so much of BTOB that it's not even funny, but they can also do non-ballad well. So I'm both curious and excited to hear what they come out with for their second single and their first comeback about two months after their debut. I'm really rooting for this group. Also, I mentioned it in the review for their debut song, but the group name is pronounced like "lost", which I only understand now because I discovered the existence of the first Gen group 5tion and then felt a little dumb because I was reading that number in English, not Korean, like a dingus. 5 is 오 ("o") in one of the Korean number systems.  The instrumentals for this one remind me of both early Astro and Seventeen. Bright and cheerful, but a...
Read more

Christmas Caroling: 2024 Edition

-
Image
 This will be updated throughout the month as I'm going to include as many of the new  holiday or winter songs as are released as I can find. If I missed any, which is likely, please yell at me. I'm also going to include ten "oldies" just for a little bit of variety in age in no particular order. Hope you find one you haven't heard before. (Also, the Country Kko Kko album that song comes from has Feliz Navidad  in Korean on it and when I tell you that I giggled, my dog was worried because I haven't laughed that hard in a while. It's a glorious song and breaks my brain a little.) This is just a bunch of music! Enjoy! The Old HELLO VENUS, ASTRO, Weki Meki All I Want aespa Jingle Bell Rock EXO December, 2014 Country Kko Kko Happy Christmas NINE.i Back to Christmas THE BOYZ White Apink PINK CHRISTMAS 2021 SBS Gayo Daejun All I Want For Christmas Is You Crayon Pop Lonely Christmas TVXQ! Duet -winter ver.- JUST KIDDING! I'm actually including a bonus 11th be...
Read more

Song Review:: Bing Crosby (feat. V (BTS)): White Christmas

-
Image
Release date: 2024 December 06 Album tracklist:  White Christmas (with V of BTS) , White Christmas (with V of BTS)(Instrumental) Album runtime: 6 minutes  Technically, I think this is actually Bing's song that features V, and I've never run into this situation before. But, sure! Bing Crosby can be a K-Pop idol. He was kind of that equivalent back in the day.  I have a complicated relationship with this song. The entire time I lived in Las Vegas, I couldn't listen to White Christmas  in any version because I couldn't have a white Christmas, and after growing up where we got snowed in nearly every Christmas, it was just a bad reminder. Instant tears every time. I now live in a place where I could actually have one again, so it's back up to one of my favorite Christmas songs, and the Bing Crosby version is superior (especially the movie version) (although Franky Boy (Frank Sinatra), Dean Martin, and Elvis all have honorable mentions for me). But also, V has the perfect...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: IN2IT: Young & Dumb

-
Image
 So this lovely group left their company after a little over two years, founded their own company, and are now going by the name Skye as of 2023. So, yes, technically IN2IT is disbanded, but it's more of a B2ST/Highlight situation. I also found out that they did a cover of SHINee's An Encore  a few months ago, which delights me to no end because that's my favorite SHINee song, and they did a great job. This one was also recommended to me, and because I've never heard of this group before, I'm genuinely delighted by the idea that I get to cover a group I haven't heard of. And the only group I've covered in one of these posts, going by some of the numbers, that's smaller is the ill-fated Chocolate, which I also hadn't heard of before I started looking into them.  Some brief background on them. They debuted in 2017 as an 8-member project group from the survival show BOYS24 under what is now WAKEONE and left at the end of their contracts in 2020, which m...
Read more

December 2024 Wrap Up: 'Tis the Season

-
Image
삼가 고인의 명복을 빕니다. It feels very weird to be in a little bit more of a "celebratory" tone given what's happened this month, and I'm caught between wanting normalcy and respecting my pattern, and wanting to be reverent. Which is part of why the posts slowed down a lot toward at the end there. Still! There were things to celebrate, like a few debuts! NINE.i had their Japanese debut ! I can't believe they turn three next March! I only covered one other debut, for Irubin, formerly of 1TEAM . Debuts, I didn't cover include Nakwon , T:EV , Dáff , Wish (formerly of ViV) , A20 MAY (a Chinese girl group, but you may have an interest there as well), Lee Gwangseok (a former Build Up contestant) , and KYSB . Most of these debuts were for soloists; only two were for groups. Although finding out that ViV is one of the first groups to disband that debuted this year is also rather disheartening. But, I also wish her luck as a soloist. There weren't as many releases that I k...
Read more

Music Show Wins: Week of 12/04 - 12/10

-
Image
  WayV absolutely dominated this week. Well done. MCountdown , the same as the past month or so, has not had a showing, yet again. Show! Music Core and Inkigayo joined them in that, so we only had three possible wins this week, and WayV got all three! Good for them. A.C.E returned to ASC as a full group for the first time in a while now that they're all finished with their enlistments. They brought the easy version of the dance challenge for the hosts, which Aron was grateful for. They're goofballs. Show Champion: WayV "Frequency (Korean Version)" MCountdown: N/A Music Bank: N/A Show! Music Core: WayV "Frequency (Korean Version)" (note: this is from their 20241130 performance) Inkigayo: N/A ASC Performance: A.C.E "PINATA"   (note: the MC challenge starts at 12:08 this time around, although if you want unadulterated chaos, you'll also want to watch the segment at 30:51, clothes go flying) (also note: because they're not releasing the perfor...
Read more