Song Review:: Key (SHINee): HUNTER- HUNTER

-

  • Release date: 2025 August 11

  • Album tracklist: HUNTER, Trap, Strange, Want Another, No Way!, Infatuation, GLAM, Picture Frame, Perfect Error, Lavender Love

  • Album runtime: 30 minutes

 I'm behind again. It's fine. I'm going to get Key's done so I'm slightly less behind, and when it was between Key, Jeon Somi, and a newly debuted team, I kind of have to go with my man Key first. No offense to either of the other two and I'll definitely be hitting the debuting one, even though I have a bad, bad feeling that they're going to be gong on Underage Protocol. It's not something that I have to worry about with Key, though. Also, seeing him in person at KCon? Wow, he is pretty. He is so much prettier in person than on camera. That was one of the only things I could talk about on the walk to the hotel. (Well, how pretty he and Hwasa are and realizing that Key may have been the oldest performer there.) The runtime is rounded up, but not too badly, though the title track is not one of the longer ones. Also, he teamed up with Seulgi for Perfect Error.

The instrumental for this song is a near constant, throbbing grind. There are brief pauses, but otherwise, stripping out his voice creates a track for a video game soundtrack. It's definitely some sort of fighting game, or one of the higher-tech Final Fantasy games, like VII, XIII, or XV. The beat is strong enough that you could do a rhythm action game to it. Maybe not a boss fight, but you're definitely dealing with something big and gnarly in a high-tech section of the video game regardless of the variety though. Because it's so steady though, it provides phenomenal groundwork for Key's voice to have support while it moves and glides smoothly through the song. The ending in particular, where we get the second of the bookended sections, backs off when Key's voice softens and goes into a decrescendo. The same with the whisper in the middle. It would be so easy for the instrumental to be overwhelming, but it's balanced well and designed well.

Oh, Key. Those ad-libs at the end are gorgeous. I'm not overly fond of the vocal effects on his voice, but they're also not overly noticeable through the entire song and he's showing off so much range with Hunter. The whispers, the falsetto, the general, constant movement through scales. I appreciate all of it. It's not necessarily the song I would have chosen for his title track, but it's got enough interesting bits to it that I both can't complain and won't argue against it. (I would have chosen Strange even though it's got the heavily altered sections, but it's also a little too early for even me to be screaming about Halloween yet, so I can understand why it wasn't the title track. Though, honestly, there are a few songs on the album that would have worked as title track. Hopefully some of them get music videos.)

So, I'm apparently adding both songs to my Halloween playlist, because I'm getting some serious shades of VIXX here. I can't decide if we're dealing with a werewolf concept, or a vampire concept, or maybe something else, but it did confirm my theory that Hunter was also spooky. Man, I really need to strengthen up my vocabulary. Also, I'm a little tiny bit sulky now that Strange didn't make title track but, again, maybe I'll be lucky and get a music video for it. In the meantime, this music video gives me the thing that I like best to see in music videos. Say it with me: storyline. That's right, we got a full, glorious storyline complete with fantastic choreography. So satisfying. So mentally stimulating. Love it. Love it so much. And that choreography? Wowsers. It's unhinged choreography at its finest and I love that so much too.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Battle of the B-Sides:: Stray Kids: MEGAVERSE

-
Image
 Yeah, I'm still continuing this. Needed some mental motivation and then I got a nice little boost, so here we are, here you are, and here this is. This comes to you from The Form , so if you've got a song you want me to highlight, go for it. Throw as many or as few as you want. For the person who submitted this, I hope it finds you. And also for the dance practice you want me to highlight. I too am very much into the dance practices, so I'm deeply looking forward to this. This is my second Stray Kids post for either a GH or a BBS, the first being My Pace , so it'll be fun to do one that is a lot more recent. (I have another one on the list suggested by my Stay friend, so that'll happen eventually) Before I begin with the chatting about the cool bits of the song, if any of you get hit by the Felix Effect, do let me know. If you don't want to let me know here, you can find me over on Tumblr (or wherever else you happen to have found this, I post them in places). ...
Read more

August 2025 Wrap-Up: The Witch is Back!

-
Image
 Okay, everyone. Welcome back!!! It's been a hot minute since I've written one of these, but considering how many songs I didn't review over the course of the last three months, I didn't feel like I had enough done to warrant a wrap-up. Still, let's get to it! And yes, the title is a reference to the movie Hocus Pocus , but also, I absolutely adore Nina Simone's . High Priestess of Soul, indeed. Back to K-Pop, first up, our lovely debuts. Now, to be clear, I do have a couple that I'm still planning on covering and once I do, this will be updated, but still. The debuts I covered were N. Top , idntt , AtHeart , Cortis, and soloist ZZONE (cignature/Good Day) . Debuts I'm still planning on covering are Rainbow18 and ZOONIZINI (ASTRO). Other debuts include MADEIN S , OFF EQUALS , IXIA , LIPSTICKERZ , and iii . (I may actually consider LIPSTICKERZ as well because that's a whole mini album and an intriguing concept.) Next section is for the songs I was loo...
Read more

Song Review:: Monsta X: THE X- N the Front

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist:  Do What I Want , N the Front , Savior, Tuscan Leather, Catch Me Now, Fire & Ice Album runtime: 18 minutes  Happy tenth anniversary, Monsta X! Everyone but Mr. Maknae I.M has returned from the military, and I'm pretty sure he needs to go this year. But! This is also my first review for September, which means that I have now, officially, been doing this for over a year. Whoo! I did have to round that up, mostly because the first and the last tracks on the album are under 2:45, and while I'm a little surprised that they didn't drop something longer for their tenth anniversary, the fact that they've been rereleasing their older songs both re-recorded in Korean and newly released in Japanese, clearly specifically for their tenth anniversary makes the mini album a few months later better. Do What I Want , despite my already having done the review for it, dropped as a pre-release so it technically doesn't count as the ...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: Stray Kids: My Pace

-
Image
 I tossed some potentials at Tumblr in a poll and this was what came back in first place, so here we go! Yes, I've gone back to the wasteland that is Tumblr, discovered that I'm considered ancient and decrepit for how long I've HAD a Tumblr account, and had to relearn how to Tumblr. But, that's fine! My Pace is one of the songs that had to be rerecorded following the departure of the former ninth member, so I'm not quite sure how to navigate the differences. I really want to be respectful of the situation and try to find as many post-departure performances and events as I can, but it may not be especially possible in all cases. In any case, I won't mention his name, because I'm aware that there are feelings surrounding his departure on all sides, and I follow the direction of Chan, who prefers that material of the nine of them not be used anymore. So all of that to say, I'm going to focus on the eight members as they are now and not mention the former ni...
Read more

Song Review:: TREASURE: LOVE PULSE- PARADISE

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist: EVERYTHING, PARADISE , NOW FOREVER, BETTER THAN ME Album runtime: 12 minutes  I did watch the YG announcement for TREASURE, BABYMONSTER, and BLACKPINK. That is a lot of capitalizations. So I knew this was coming and this was on my list of releases I was curious about for this month. I haven't listened to them a lot, much like I haven't actually listened to a lot of BIGBANG, WINNER, or iKON (again, so many capital letters), but when I like one of their songs, I tend to really, really like it. Plus, the members of TREASURE are all adults now, and that's important because at debut, I couldn't have listened to them (maknae was fifteen). So I came it at a good time. The album doesn't quite hit the desired three minute average, but each song is at least in the 2:50 range, so it could be a lot worse. The title track is the shortest of the bunch, but it could be worse. I'd prefer if all the songs got an extra ten seconds,...
Read more

Song Review:: GIRLSET: Commas {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2025 August 29 Album tracklist: Commas Album runtime: 2 minutes  Welp. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that JYPE didn't toss the whole group out with the bathwater, but I suppose either the remaining members are more willing to stick out what are industry wide conditions, mostly, or JYPE sees potential for the remaining members to still do something with what's left of their careers. So, here we are with a re-debut. You'll notice I don't always hit the Katseye releases (and I've been entirely ignoring the British group from SM whose name I do not remember, but I'm also still very angry with SM over the Seunghan situation, and that reminds me, I need to do his solo debut) because they're not K-Pop and my backlog is currently so massive that I'm not going to cover them too much, especially when I'm peeved over things about that group (mostly HYBE related, as you can guess) and I don't particularly like their sound to begin with. ...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides: LABOUM: 빛이 되어쥐 (Be the Light)

-
Image
 Unless I do The Roulette Wheel, I obviously can pick which of the suggestions I've gotten that I'll write posts for. I also have a spreadsheet where I have my posts organized by generation and boy group, girl group, and co-ed. The co-ed groups definitely need more attention, but I'm taking these last few Specialty posts to focus on the girl groups because they're not my natural inclination, and while the Roulette Wheel is weighted equally, I don't like that it's uneven. So, I ignored my normal addition of the B/G/Co-Ed Wheel spin and just did it for a girl group, and I ended up with LABOUM. I'm not sure I've heard of them, so this will be exciting.  LABOUM is a third gen girl group that are younger sisters to U-KISS and Brown Eyed Girls, which is wildly hilarious considering the last GH post I did was in fact for BEG's song Abracadabra . So, that was unintended. 빛이 되어쥐 , or Be the Light  as I will be calling it through this because while it would be...
Read more

Song Review:: NCT Wish (NCT): COLOR- COLOR

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist: COLOR , Baby Blue, Surf , Cheat Code, Videohood, WICHU, Reel-ationship Album runtime: 21 minutes  Apparently there's another NCT Wish song that dropped ahead of this that I didn't know about. Mildly peeved. It's fine. I may not get to it though if it doesn't get a win anywhere. Apologies for that. I feel like I've heard the beginning of this song somewhere, and I feel like it's a first Gen song. I mean, SM had three groups: H.O.T, S.E.S, and Shinhwa. It wouldn't be out of the picture to borrow a snip of instrumental from one of them. After that slightly more mystical introduction, things get a little more industrial with the clanging and the street performance music vibe. We get the mystical back, which I appreciate as that means that the introduction isn't a one-and-done, and we get some interesting instruments that spice up the song a little.  SM songs just sound like SM songs, and I get why if you like...
Read more

Song Review:: ZZONE (cignature/Good Day): Devil's Jam {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2025 August 25 Album tracklist:  Devil's Jam , Devil's Jam(Inst) Album runtime: 7 minutes  Okay, so if you're a fan of cignature, you might be confused about that name because none of the cignature members went by that name. This is Jeewon! Whoo! Apparently this is her official solo debut, although she did release a solo song earlier than this. I also can say that I do occasionally listen to cignature. They're not one of my groups that make super excited to see music or content from, but I do have some of their songs in some of my playlists. So I am looking forward to seeing what she'll give us with this digital single. It's interesting that there have been a couple of songs released in the last month or so that have sort of an Indian vibe or overlay or something of the sort. It does make me wonder if something was prompting this the last couple of years for songwriters and for the companies to pick these songs. There are some synth effects that ki...
Read more

Song Review:: ZEROBASEONE: NEVER SAY NEVER- ICONIK

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist: ICONIK , SLAM DUNK , Lovesick Game, Goosebumps, Dumb, NOW OR NEVER (Korean ver.), EXTRA, Long Way Back, Star Eyes, I KNow U Know Album runtime: 32 minutes  It feels like Slam Dunk came out absolutely ages ago, but I guess it only came out the end of July. Which, again, to be fair, feels like it was absolutely ages ago. Time is a soup. We have an excellent run time on this album, with an average of over three minutes per song, which is impressive because 40% of the songs are under three minutes and one of them is barely two-and-a-half (I'm really looking forward to that one, though, because it's not a title track and I'm very curious about its title). And shout out to the four-minute song! The pre-release was energetic and sporty. This one is smooth and a little noir. It's not full noir, but if they were wearing suspenders and fedoras, doing whatever else, it would make a lot of sense. I'm also reminded a little bit of...
Read more