Song Review:: Junhee (A.C.E): The First Day & Night- Supernova {Pre-Debut}

• Release date: 2025 September 12

• Album tracklist: Umbrella (10:00), Tattoo (12:30) (with Lee Jiham, BK, Kang Yuchan & WoW), Too Bad (15:00), Sugar (18:00), You should come (21:00), Supernova (00:00), Night (02:00), 호랑이 장기 가는 날 (10:00)

• Album runtime: 25 minutes

 MY MAN, JUNHEE. Y'all, I have been counting down the days until this was released. I found out about it because of his absolutely phenomenal cover of Your Idol from Kpop Demon Hunters (I'll drop the video at the bottom of this review because it is so amazingly done and the amount I refuse to shut up about that cover should alarm me, but you know how much I don't care? Not at all, actually.) This will be his solo debut, but I think this is a pre-release. And, like, he and the other members leave Beat Interactive. He founds a company to house A.C.E. He starts prepping this. He takes like a week to drop the cover and attracts so much attention that people who have never heard of the group are now listening to them. Yes. My man. I'd apologize for the blatant favoritism right now, but could not be bothered to even pretend to care. I am deeply disappointed by the song length though. 

So, it starts off fairly soft, and it alternates fairly well between the soft and the more energetic depending on where the song is in its runtime, though there's not really too much of a true energy shift between the two kinds of sections. But the song is fairly supportive for his vocals and that will do a lot for me to ignore the relative stability of the instrumental track. It's well balanced and at no point does it get more than the vocals. 

Ooh, an all English track. I was not expecting this. I mean, I'm not overly surprised by this because if he's not fluent in English, then he's close enough, but at the same time, considering his native language is in fact Korean, I would have expected that. As expected from him, we get ad-libs, we get trills, we get runs, we get a general display of vocal agility ranging from a tone that reminds me of Maroon 5 or Owl City or One Republic to a very clear, controlled falsetto. His vibrato is one that is very reminiscent of second gen and their seeming inability to hide it completely, which is something that generally gets rarer as the groups get younger. The instrumental track is merely a vehicle for his gorgeous vocals. I'd love to hear an acoustic version of this song, because I think he'd do really well with acoustic versions and also because that could do some very interesting things with the vibe of the song. But this is such a good sounding song.

I could spend this entire paragraph talking about why the costuming choices for him were excellent (spoilers: he's got like four of them and they're all so amazingly attractive on him. The only one missing from the Traditionally Hot From The Female Gaze list is Soft Professor). So please pretend that I just did that because I don't want to spend the entire paragraph talking about how attractive he is, though I could, and would rather talk about things like the acting! Y'all, we have an actual music video with acting from him as well as a storyline. Could not be happier. He's being a loser who has fallen head over heels at first sight. It's a traditional rom com story, and I would say get this man in a drama, but he has. Several, in fact. Also, at one point, watching the choreography while he's in the Disney Prince costume, I was like "This dude could play a live-action Prince Eric and be perfect for the job." With more dancing because this man's skills are just too good. I'm genuinely asking, is there nothing he can't do?

Also, here's the Your Idol cover. I'm a little bit obsessed with this.

And, surprise! His cover of Free with AleXa! They dressed up like them and possibly filmed at the location inspiration.