Song Review:: Baekhyun (EXO): Essence of Reverie- Chocolate {Pre-Release}

• Release date: 2025 May 19

• Album tracklist: Chocolate, Elevator, Lemonade, Love Comes Back, No Problem, Black Dreams, Late Night Calls

• Album runtime: 20 minutes

 Yes, I'm finally getting to this one. Yes, I'm doing the pre-release instead of the title track. But this has been sitting in my drafts for ages and it's finally bothered me enough to do it. I would however like to report that I have about half the members of EXO that I can identify by face and name. My goal is to get all of them down before Sehun is discharged.  

The song is remarkably consisten, instrumentals-wise. It's so steady that even when the science fiction warbling is occasionally popping in, it's unsurprising, as though that was the only option available to the song. Even when the vocals above are doing fairly interesting things, the instrumentals are reliably solid. That does mean that the song has fewer variations than I like to see, even with the three minute runtime, but the style is such that there's a sultriness to it that I'm sure people are responding well to and that is likely to do well when paired with choreography. 

The style asks for the breathiness that Baekhyun is singing with, so in that regards, I appreciate it. Ironically, the falsetto he's using sometimes is a little bit better supported than the general tone he uses throughout, but I still do like that he shifts up into the falsetto rather than the song remaining down in the song-song tone and range. The whole thing is a little too restrained for my taste, but I'm also pretty sure that he's got the kind of voice 

So interesting case in point. When the song came out, this didn't drop with it. So have the music video, but I'm not going to give you any commentary on it as a compromise.