Song Review:: Ilhoon (BTOB): moonwalk

• Release date: 2025 February 13

• Album tracklist: moonwalk, moonwalk - inst.

• Album runtime: 4 minutes

 The time has come. This has been sitting in my drafts, titled but otherwise unused since the song came out. If you remember, the last time he released a song, I basically had it reviewed within a couple of hours. This time I was so far behind that I didn't dare skip the line because then it would simply be chaos. So I haven't listened to it yet, and also partially because I had a feeling that it would devastate me, which was kind of confirmed by my mother who today asked me if I'd listened to it yet and then told me to make sure I had tissues. She has wonderful timing, dearest readers. Still, it's not on purpose that I am doing the reviews for both Changsub and Ilhoon one right after the other. They released songs about the same time that I learned about at about the same time, so their started drafts for me to do in order were right next to each other. Really. That's it. I promise. 

Two and a quarter minutes.

...

Ilhoon gets a pass because he's him.

And oh, good. He gave us the instrumental so I can avoid the lyrics first. Bless him.

We've got kind of a gospel sound going on here to start it off, which I am one hundred percent here for, and then it switched to something that sounds almost bright and cheery, or at least it would if it weren't for that slight drag on one of the percussion beats. It throws the rhythm just off balance enough to keep this from sounding too much like something out of a cozy video game. There's a lot of repeating that I hope isn't a harbinger for the lyrics, like, the entire song except for the beginning is basically the same measure repeated over and over and over. And over. And over again. But then, you get a break! And you hope that when it transitions, it doesn't transition back to B, but instead goes to D. And that's not what is happening The fade out at the end, even if it isn't a true fade out, brings me joy because I really like songs with the fade out. 

He's got such a good rapping tone here, seemingly effortless though I know it's not and just rolling through the song softly. I had to look this up, but it's possible that the Melody birthday is Dec 2nd. And that alone would make me want to cry. "Sorry I missed your birthday." Unless he's talking about Eunkwang and Minhyuk from back in November, but for my sanity, it's for Melody. I'm glad he's back. I'm glad he's making music again. Even if he's trying to break my heart as he heals, I will take that so he can recover. I hope he's letting someone give him a hug every once in a while. 

He seems happy and smiling and that's all I can ask for from him, to make choices that make him happy.