Song Review:: Xdinary Heroes: DEAD AND- Voyager

-

  • Release date: 2026 April 17
  • Album tracklist: Helium Balloon, Voyager, No Cool Kids Zone, Hurt So Good, Rise High Rise, KTM, X room
  • Album runtime: 22 minutes

 I may have to try to do four a day to try to catch up. Because I almost caught up and then a whole lot of songs were released on the 20th and now I'm very behind again. Still, I'm very excited about this album, and I love seeing rock bands get recognition.

You know, I just really like rock music, as I'm sure you could have guessed. The drums in this one have some interesting pattern disruptions during the chorus that I didn't notice during the chorus until I was specifically listening to them. They're hanging out on the quarter note but close to the end of the cycle, they have a pair of eighth notes instead, which is subtle, but an excellent addition. The dominance of the guitar through the whole thing is also a big highlight for me, but there are so many spots where everything has a moment to kick up its heels.

Again, I really like rock bands. Why? They haven't had the vibrato stripped from their voices in post production or had it trained out of them. We've also got belts, another thing I look for, and we've got audience participation "whoa"s. That's not something that I look for normally, but I like it when I see it. Well, hear it. We've got a strong, moving melody throughout the entire thing, and just in general, it's a big song.

Ah, what a beautiful music video. It was a bit bittersweet for me, just because of my feelings regarding old people, but it was beautiful, and there is a lovely animated section that brightens up the entire thing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March 2026 Wrap-Up: Time is a Soup

-
Image
 So I'm awake at 1 am for literally zero reason. And while I could continue to write the reviews to be posted tomorrow, instead I'm going to get this started because as we know, these can take a minute. You know? You know. I'm going to add some plant pictures at the bottom after the section where I talk about what I was listening to. I covered three group debuts this month: TUNEXX , SUCTION , V01D ! I also covered two solo debuts: Yuna from ITZY and Kangmin from Verivery. Those links all go to my reviews. There were two virtual idol groups that debuted that I did not cover: Skinz and Owis . Songs I was looking forward to: BTOB: They turned fourteen this year, and the gift we got was a digital single from the six of them. They're always a good time, vocally. EVERGLOW: You know, I've been listening to them more. I'm curious. And, they recently left their old company, so I'm hoping they continue on well and get recognition Woodz: He's got an amazing voic...
Read more

Song Review:: BTS: ARIRANG- SWIM

-
Image
Release date: 2026 March 20 Album tracklist: Body to Body, Hooligan , Aliens, FYA, 2.0 , No. 29, SWIM , Merry Go Round, NORMAL, Like Animals, they don't know 'bout us, One More Night, Please, Into the Sun Album runtime: 41 minutes  Well, here we are, folks. A much awaited comeback. Let's just get to it. I did take note of the runtime and we're just shy of a three minute runtime average for the album, and the title track is less than three, which I'm not as pleased about, but that's par for the course with HYBE title tracks lately. At least it's over two-and-a-half minutes, so I'm not going to whine too much. Also, I took off the NU'EST nail polish of two of my nails and painted one of them purple in honor of this comeback. I'm very curious to see what they've got for us and I'll be taking a listen to the whole album to find the song I like best, which is likely to be a b-side given my track record. Parts of this instrumental remind me a l...
Read more

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

-
Image
 So I realized while I was writing the previous post (link down at the bottom) that their anniversary was actually on a Wednesday, which is one of the two days that I try to post on. But I had a plan and I wanted to follow the plan, and while I was making said plan, I temporarily forgot what day they debuted, which is silly because it's ten days after NU'EST. Also, this was a request from my Stay friend...quite a bit ago, but because of MEGAVERSE , I wanted to spread out the Stray Kids posts a bit, which is why this has taken me so long (I apologized when we went to Hannah's concert together). I feel like I've heard this song before, but I can't recall what it sounds like by the name. Also, I'm taking a break from the planning and going wild and random for April, so unless someone has a time specific post for me to do (like an anniversary or birthday or other celebration of some sort), I have no idea what you're getting for April nor what I get to do. It...
Read more

Music Show Wins:: Week of 03/25 - 03/31

-
Image
  We are low on the performances this week because the only winner this week hasn't performed it on any of the music shows. Which is fair. They've been jet-setting busy bees lately on top of prepping for their tour and having an injured leader. But this is also the last of these for the first quarter of 2026! So, for the After School Club re-run, we've got ep.147 from 2015 featuring the fun 4Minute, so named because they could gain fans in the length of a single song. They're also very loud and a little unhinged, as I'd expect of a Cube group (and they also have the exact same energy as BTOB on Kingdom in this episode, which is hilarious). For the The Show re-run, we've got the girl group DIA from 2018. And for the extra stage, I grabbed AtHeart's on Show Champion  because I really liked that song. As always, the links down in the spreadsheet go to my reviews, and the link down below for ASC goes to the full episode. I'd give you the embedded version,...
Read more

Song Review:: SF9: About Love- Love Comes Slowly

-
Image
Release date: 2026 March 25 Album tracklist: Love Comes Slowly , Fade Into Memories, You Think Too Much, Last of Us, Hurt & Hollow, By Your Side, Broken Way Album runtime: 21 minutes  I was very happy to be able to pull Dawon's photocard off my Enlistment Wall a couple of months ago, so I'm hoping that he was involved in this comeback. There are a couple of track names on this album that I'm definitely interested in, and so I'll be listening to the whole thing after I'm done with this. "So" is apparently my word for today. This song would be very easy to turn into an acoustic version. I mean, we are talking laughably easy. I haven't heard a song where I could hear the non-existent acoustic version this strongly. Anyway, there's actually a pretty big chunk of this song that has effects to make it sound like it's a 40s lacquer disc, particularly with the piano. I'm in love with the sound of this instrumental, by the way. It's wonderfu...
Read more

Song Review:: T.O.P (BIGBANG): TOP SPOT - ANOTHER DIMENSION- DESPERADO

-
Image
Release date: 2026 April 03 Album track list: SELF CRUCIFIXION; THE GIANT; Studio54 ; A SMALL, FILTHY SHOW WINDOW; ZERO-COKE; Another Dimension Holy Dude!!!!!!!!; SEOUL CHAOS; DESPERADO ; FOR FANS; STENDHAL SYNDROME; BE SOLID Album runtime: 37 mi nutes  There isn't a single song on here that is under three minutes. I love him. He can stay attached to the group. The other one who is no longer in the group, if he ever decides to make music again, will not, because I continue to follow the leader's cues, much like I do with BTOB. And G-Dragon seems to be deliberate in his actions. So, welcome back, T.O.P. I'm very happy to be here to review this song, even though we all know I am not the biggest fan of rap. This is a very slow, weighty instrumental with a western guitar going on (and by that I mean country western specifically). We've also going some coin sound effects but largely this is such an unhurried instrumental that even though we do later get some higher, faster b...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: Apink: Mr. Chu

-
Image
 I was originally planning to do something out of my 1300+ song playlist for this one, so I popped into my Junk Drawer playlist (AKA the playlist that has a lot of interesting things in it, but that I'm not quite sure where to put yet and most of which I haven't listened to) to reset that playlist. This was the song that played. I thought to myself "Huh. That would be an interesting choice next anyway, because I don't think I've heard it yet. I mostly know of this group because of Dino of Seventeen's love for them." And then I shrugged and followed my original plan. Hilariously, it gave me a Baekho song, but I can't do that one in April because it doesn't turn two until May. So then I said "Well, let's see what the Roulette Wheel I made can give me." That song was also a 2024 song by a group called APEX (I thought I'd misspelled EPEX in the Roulette master list; I did not and will be coming back to this group later) and another on...
Read more

Song Review:: Kangmin (Verivery): Free Falling- Free Falling {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2026 March 26 Album tracklist: Intro : small, fragile, and still here; Free Falling ; in the mirror Album runtime: 8 minutes  The Verivery maknae has debuted as a soloist! Some of you may remember him from Boys Planet 2 (and I've got a soft spot for him a mile wide because Baekho talked to him and gave him some very specific advice), and while I'm sad that he didn't make it into the final group, I don't mind it as much because he's back with his group and they have released music since Boys Planet 2. They need to release more, but for now, it's okay. And this is his solo debut! I'm disappointed by the runtime for this song though. Especially for a debut, it's far too short. Ooh, that sounds like a maraca we've got going on here. That's fun. The skittering beat that pops in, especially during the chorus, feels like it's too much for the style of the vocals and it creates an uncomfortable disconnect, especially when the song is ca...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: woo!ah!: Catch the Stars

-
Image
 I waffled back an forth on what song I wanted to do here a lot. I thought I'd made a decision, and then I decided against it. Then I'd made another decision, and decided against it. Then, I went back to my original thought, and here we are. I have, like, three songs that I keep circling that I want to talk about, but that also means putting them in a spot where they support the songs to either side (in this case BTOB and Stray Kids) and also stand out well on their own. I feel for the people who decide the order to put songs in an album or for a setlist. It's not easy. And I know that the group recently-ish had a bit of negative attention, but if anything, that painted the company in a worse light than the group members, and this isn't the first time that a group under that company has had issues with mistreatment.  woo!ah! debuted as a six member group under NV Entertainment (now H Entertainment and also formerly SSQ Entertainment) in 2020. They are currently a five m...
Read more

Music Show Wins:: Week of 03/04 - 03/10

-
Image
  I decided to stick with the girl groups for the extra clips and stages, because IVE has been absolutely dominating lately. And congrats to Hearts2Hearts for their first win for Rude! For the After School Club re-run, I went with 9Muses in 2015, and episode 141! They did a lot on this episode, including showing off the point dance (AKA the pre-cursor to the dance challenge) and having the rappers and the vocalists swap parts. The point dance is the clip embedded here, while the link goes to the full episode because things get a bit weird if I just try to embed the episodes. The old The Show  performance is from 2019, and it's AOA. The extra performance from this week was from Show Champion and I picked X:IN! The links in the spreadsheet go to the reviews I wrote. Show Champion: IVE "BLACKHOLE" MCountdown: Hearts2Hearts "Rude!" Music Bank: IVE "BANG BANG" Show! Music Core:  IVE "BANG BANG" Inkigayo:  IVE "BANG BANG" ASC Performance:...
Read more