Song Review:: GHOST9: Moonlight

-

  • Release date: 2026 September 23

  • Album tracklist: Moonlight

  • Album runtime: 3 minutes

 After the recent influx of AI slop on their Spotify profile, when I actually took a video of the over thirty songs that has dropped over a single weekend, I was initially deeply suspicious when a new release crossed my profile. Imagine my surprise when I look and the runtime is three minutes, but I don't trust yet, so I check the copyright holder. Not only is it in Korean, which none of the others were, but it's also the name of their company! A third check on YouTube confirms: this one is legit and the group's first release in almost two years!

That whistling is aggravatingly familiar. I know I've heard something similar. Whatever. Anyway. There's not a lot of particular vibrancy to the instrumental and that aggravates me because of how strong their earlier songs were. The good news is that this instrumental as a whole almost allows for the illusion of a cappella because this is strongly elevator music and quickly fades to the background of your attention. 

The other good news, despite the mildness of the instrumental, is that the vocals do a decent job of trying to make up for it. There's a particular spot where you've got high vocals alternating with lower rapping, and that is a really good combo. We also get some big ad-libs there at the end, which perked my ears up and made me both surprised and delighted. I don't hear that many big ad-libs very often from especially the younger groups these days. Very nice.

No music video, which is sadness for me, but here's the song all the same. Glad to see them back.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Song Review:: EVNNE: HOT MESS- HOT MESS

-
Image
Release date: 2025 February 10 Album tracklist : HOT MESS , Birthday, Love Like That, CROWN, Youth, Keshiki - Korean Version Album runtime: 19 minutes  This one is a little bit earlier than the ones that I've been doing recently, which makes me sad because I thought I was making progress and getting later  in the month, instead of earlier. But it's fine. At this point, the entirety of the group is at least eighteen, the youngest actually turns nineteen this year, so that's good. Project group formed from Boys Planet trainees, including Keita! Which is exciting! I liked him! But the length of the title track? Really? What is this? That beginning startled both me and my cat. Goodness. This song is chock full of energy from start to finish, a veritable runaway train. But like. Also if the runaway train wasn't going at breakneck speed? It doesn't make me feel out of breath listening to it, in other words. There's also a lot going on with the various instruments, to ...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: i-dle: VILLAIN DIES

-
Image
 Thank you to whoever decided to submit this song for October. I'm slightly surprised that this one was chosen instead of one of their other Halloween-appropriate songs, but I'm the opposite of upset or disappointed. I actually had an idea to do a similarly titled song by Girls' Generation, but then this landed in my lap from The Form, and I'm perfectly fine with swapping it out.  i-dle debuted in 2018 under Cube Entertainment as a six-member group, originally under the name "(G)i-dle". A lot of their songs have been written by their leader, the very fierce Soyeon, and I just have to say that this specific album has a lot of songs I really like on it. VILLAIN DIES is the third track of their 2022 album, I NEVER DIE . The lyricist and composer is Soyeon (CLC, Baby DONT Cry, Key, Kim Namjoo, and Ravi), and the composer-only is THE PROOF (iKON, Jo Yuri, BVNDIT, CLC, ASTRO, Pentagon, Hyolyn, VAV, Viini, and Verivery). This is a dark fairytale of a song, and I lov...
Read more

Song Review:: Keyveatz: OXY_GEN- OXY {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2026 June 29 Album tracklist: Key Beats , Catch My Breath, OXY , SUB_ZERO (feat. punchnello) , SUCK IT UP Album runtime: 12 minutes  Well, not a single song on here is over three minutes. That's not ideal. Also, the group is not on Underage Protocol, which is nice, because then I get to sit on the song for a little bit. But, let's see what kind of a debut we're working with.  Okay. This is quite the intense song. Even when the skittering beat goes away, we're left with a deep bass that at concert levels is going to rattle the bones in your chest. Very strong techno music going on. There's a spot that's got the variation levels that I look for where that deep bass is cut out, but overall, there's something about the song that feels a bit too frantic for my energy right now.  We've got a decent mix of rapping and singing, which is good. On both ends, we're listening to well-supported voices, and this is obviously a group where it's ra...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: Cross Gene: Black Or White

-
Image
 This is one of the many groups that debuted in 2012, which is why 2012 was called the year of boy groups. There were a lot that debuted and a lot that did really well. Some of them took longer than others, but generally speaking (and it's not just me with my love of 2012 groups), the 2012 boy groups were a good crop. And they are actually technically no longer on hiatus because they released a song back in June of this year (2026)! Yay! I'm fully aware that I'm projecting with the 2012 groups, but it brings me both relief and joy any time I see any of them doing a comeback. There's actually a cute anecdote about Yongseok seeing his leader at an airport in Japan, realizing it was Shin, and calling out to him. They had a meal together and Yongseok admitted he missed being in a group. Shin came around to the idea after a long letter that Yongseok sent him because he was the last one at the company and was still holding onto Cross Gene. Cross Gene debuted as a six-member ...
Read more

June 2026 Wrap Up: Soccer and Ranch

-
Image
 Did y'all know I've written over 1200 posts now? And that's not counting the drafts of the reviews I've got sitting to be typed up. Those are just the ones that have actually been posted. I'm super behind on literally everything to do with this blog. But it's fine. June was a good month. Debuts! Debuts I covered were: NXON , Keyveatz , and V8 (Seventeen) . The ones I did not were HAT:Q , B.YOUR SIDE , A-1000 , for groups, HyunHaYo (Treasure) for a sub-unit, and some of the soloists were Renjun (NCT) , Evan (Enhypen) ,  Lee Jae Wook , Kaina , and Kim Dong Geum . I'd just like to point out Lee Jae Wook, because he is of course the lead actor for Alchemy of Souls , which is, of course, the reason that I'm sitting here writing these words in my present and you're sitting or standing or laying there reading these words in your present.  Songs I was looking forward to: SHINee: I love that even though they're not the most active of groups these days, ...
Read more

Song Review:: Alpha Drive One: UNBREAKABLE : BEAST- BORN DIRE

-
Image
Release date: 2026 August 24 Album tracklist: BORN DIRE , Diamond Hour, One More Time, Talk to me , OMG! , Good Life, WELCOME home Album runtime: 18 minutes  Congrats on the win! I'm so behind that we've had another music video drop for a track from this album. I'm deeply disappointed by the runtimes though because there's one that's exactly three minutes long and one that's slightly more than three minutes, but that album runtime is not it. Also, why is the last song so oddly threatening in the title? You know, just as I was thinking about how this song just went full tilt and didn't pause for a breath, it did in fact slow down a little. So that's good that we've got that variation. There's something missing from it to make this instrumental as eerily threatening as I think it wants to be, and I think what's missing is the fact that the song is in a major key. There's nothing technically wrong with it. It's got a lot of really good p...
Read more

Song Review:: Son Ho Young (god): Go Around

-
Image
Release date: 2026 October 14 Album tracklist:  Go Around , Go Around (Inst.) Album runtime: 6 minutes  If you don't think that I'm going to do a review for a member of god (pronounced "G-O-D") as a soloist, I have not been doing my due diligence in screaming about my love for this group from the rooftops. There are only so many rooftops to scream from, but I will have to rectify this. This song is Son Ho-Young's first solo release in five years, and I am honored to be able to do this for him.  The drums and the guitar don't kick off into the song immediately, which lets the first impression be one of softness. And while we do have very steady energy, the softening that occurs occasionally is going to do really well to either let the vocals rest or to highlight them. We get the instrumental in the single, so I don't have to try to listen under the vocals yet for this part, which is why I can't say that yet, but this is an excellent flow of energy and m...
Read more

Song Review:: V.O.S: Will I See You

-
Image
Release date: 2026 October 09 Album tracklist:  Will I See You , Will I See You - Inst. Album runtime: 7 minutes  I'm so excited about the older groups being more active right now. Also, with the weather getting colder, I have to start wearing my wrist and thumb brace more which makes it a bit difficult to type, but it's easier to type on a keyboard than on my phone right now because of the lack of thumb movement. Gotta love car accidents. So much fun. Anyway, they debuted in 2004 and all three of them are married. Good for them. I'm glad they could have that bit of normalcy. This is a gorgeous instrumental. It's almost a lullaby of a song. We've got the trio of instruments that are just so versatile: piano, guitar, and drums. We get both kinds of guitars, which is always fun to hear, although the acoustic guitar does get a little bit more airtime. On top of the standard trio, we've also got a gorgeous violin just soaring its way through the instrumental. This e...
Read more

Song Review:: Jeonghan & Joshua (Seventeen): DREAMSCAPE- 12 o'clock {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2026 October 19 Album tracklist: Like you, 12 o'clock , Outside, One plus one, Not personal (Joshua Solo), Coloring (Jeonghan Solo), No looking back Album runtime: 19 minutes  Whoo! The next of the Seventeen subunits has debuted, which means that now Jeonghan is in almost as many subunits as Hoshi is. If they'd done the Guoz subunit, then SCoups would have been in as many official subunits as Hoshi. I'm deeply upset though over the fact that we have a title track that is shorter than two-and-a-half minutes. And only two of the seven songs are over three minutes. But this is a specific problem across all of the HYBE groups. I don't know what it is about this song, but it sounds oddly SHINee. Am I the only one hearing that? It's got a good streak of funky guitar and almost catcalling whistling. It's just really too short to have too much variation to it, although I love how the rest of the instrumental sort of pauses a little during the whistling. We...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: DreamNote: GHOST

-
Image
 Alrighty-roo. I went back and took a look at some of the songs I shared with y'all in the other Halloween posts, and decided that I'd put this one on the short list for October this year. The shortlist is twenty songs long, for the record, so I'm not going to cover all of them right now, but I thought that this would be a good one to follow a behemoth of a group. As I said in the Halloween post in 2024, I wouldn't have discovered this group and this song if they hadn't released a new song. Ish. Seriously, this is an underrated group and it's impressive they survived as long as they did. They made it the full seven years of their contract, which is four more than the average girl group, so I just want that acknowledgement for them. Also, their fandom colors are Joyful Green and Cheerful Yellow, and that's just so precious that they actually have colors and what those colors are called. I know that's a bit weird with how dark this song is, but most of th...
Read more