April 2026 Reviews


 My boy JR is back so I can get back to the business of focusing on everyone else I care about and everyone else who has things happening this month. I'm actually really excited about some of the comebacks I already know about (and I know about one debut because I saw a video on Instagram and you best bet that I'll be reviewing that debut around the fifteenth because I am here for violins).


20260401 Kino (Pentagon) "TAXI"

20260401 fromis_9 "Sky Runner" {Japanese Debut}

20260402 Somin (KARD) "Backseat" {Debut}

20260403 T.O.P (BIGBANG) "DESPERADO"

20260403 T.O.P (BIGBANG) "Studio54"

20260403 Monsta X "hurt"

20260405 xikers "Heroine"

20260406 Kiss of Life "Who is she"

20260406 KickFlip "Eye-Poppin'"

20260407 Dayoung (WJSN) "What's a girl to do"

20260407 Donghae (Super Junior) "Good Day" {Pre-Release}

20260407 Young Posse "we don't go to bed tonight"

20260407 cosmosy "Silence ~ body and soul ~" {Japanese}

20260408 AMPERS&ONE "GOD"

20260408 KEYVITUP 'KEYVITUP" {Debut}

20260408 hertz.wav "NINETEEN" {Debut}

20260409 Hwasa (MAMAMOO) "So Cute"

20260409 LOVEONE "UNICA"

20260413 &TEAM "We on Fire"

20260413 Jay Chang (ONE PACT) "Higher"

20260413 MODYSSEY "HOOK" {Debut}

20260413 ILLIT "Bubee" {OST}

20260413 PLAVE "Born Savage"

20260413 DxS (Seventeen) "Feel Me"

20260413 TOMORROW X TOGETHER "Stick With You"

20260414 DXMON "SSS"

20260414 Kangin (Super Junior) "LOVE IS PAIN"

20260415 ALL'N "We Up" {Debut}

20260415 Be Boys "SLAM DUNK"

20260415 HITGS "Cherry Blossom"





Wrap-Up: Party In The Desert

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

Battle of the B-Sides:: HOT ISSUE: We Go

Image
 Okay, everyone! Back to my September of groups that deserve more attention because they shouldn't be forgotten! This isn't even the newest group that we're going to be talking about this month because the next one is even younger, but I think they have survived technically longer. I've actually got a couple of HOT ISSUE's songs in one of my playlists already, though this is not one of them. I just decided that I wanted something a lot more upbeat than what I was going to get from S#arp. So. The reality is the group lasted less than a year, which is even worse than the three year average for girl groups. But the song doesn't know that. HOT ISSUE debuted in 2021 as a seven-member group under S2 Entertainment, a company that was set up by one of the founders of Cube Entertainment, which automatically tells me that this group has some vocals on them. It also makes sense that I found them and added songs to playlists despite their less than a year of official activi...
Read more

Song Review:: Kiss of Life: SWEAT- SWEAT

Image
Release date: 2026 August 04 Album tracklist: SWEAT , WHAT! Album runtime: 5 minutes  I haven't seen any more issues from them, so I'm going to probationarily pull them off Underage Protocol for this song. Also, congrats on the win!  This song is delightfully on the dramatic side of things, but it's not fully theatre kid dramatic, if that makes any sense. It's cool kid drama, which isn't as fun but no less engaging. I'm almost positive the song is an afrobeats song (maybe tropical house? I'm still not positive on some genres), which I am squinting over a little bit because of their previous situation, but it's not something that would immediately qualify them for being put back, especially since none of the members had a hand in the composition. I'll also say that the decrescendo immediately made it qualify for my favorite releases of the year, then when it goes back up to tempo, it feels so much faster. It's the quiet principle in tempo form, wh...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: The Boyz: Survive The Night

Image
I'm not super familiar with most of their discography and even though Sangyeon was on my enlistment wall (I've got a softness for him because his birthday is near mine), I wasn't initially planning on doing a discharge post for him. Then, to my surprise, I got this request in The Form from someone who just found my little blog from a post I shared on Tumblr, asking if I'd do this song for Sangyeon's discharge. Naturally! Discharge posts and anniversary posts are two of my favorite kinds of posts to do because they're just happy times usually. And I'm excited to do this specific one because while I've heard a couple of songs from this album, I haven't actually heard this one, so you're also introducing me to a new song. I also find it slightly satisfying that I'd already planned to do a song by a group from this company (sort of) this month, so I'm very much not opposed to including The Boyz here because they too have languished under a ga...
Read more

Song Review:: Stray Kids: THIS & THAT- After You

Image
Release date: 2026 August 07 Album tracklist: RUN IT , THIS & THAT , After You, FARMING , I Do, Way Out, Back Then, This & That - (Festival Version) Album runtime: 25 minutes  Wow, I've managed to be so late in doing this one that they've dropped another single. I'm just perpetually behind. It's fine. I'm telling you, every time I'm not immediately enamoured with a title track of theirs, the b-sides hit me in the brain perfectly. Most of this song is balanced in such a way that the verses have a song instrumental, so the vocals don't have sound competition, the chorus gets a big burst followed by an even bigger burst. And it's very well-balanced. But then, there's a late stage complete tonal shift that sounds nothing like the rest of the song. That's where we get the experimental, Stray Kids patented noise music. It's brief and discordant and I find it very charming because it's brief. This works as a b-side very well. I think eve...
Read more

Halloween Spookening: 2025 Edition

Image
 It's the most wonderful time of the year!  I'm back with a new selection of Halloween themed or generally spooky songs for you all! Have I spent the year looking for new songs for my playlist? Yes. Yes, yes I have, so if you have anymore suggestions for me, give me the creepy doll songs, the predatory wolfy songs, the haunting and the eerie. I love my Halloween playlist and I listen to it all year long, but October is the official start of when I don't get weird looks from people for listening to it. I am so excited. I get to pull out my Halloween nail polish and the glow in the dark stickers. It's a good time to be me, and also hopefully you as well. So the Halloween recs for you for the year 2025 are: Welcome To The Other Side by DPR Ian (C-Clown) Yes, he's Australian, but he was in the K-Pop group C-Clown, which is one of my beloved 2012s, so I'm counting him. Also, this song is super spooky with dramatic strings at the beginning and artistically applied au...
Read more

Halloween Spookening: 2026 Edition

Image
 Everyone! It is time for the best season of the year! We're back with another batch of songs for the month of Spookening! Whoo! As always, because I am a connoisseur of the creepy, I spend basically all year scouring for the spooky and the dark songs. Basically, if I'm not in a specific mood playlist or my regular listening playlist, I've had my ears buried in spooky playlists. And I found some whoppers, but I can only fit so many into this unless I want to make it four hours long. You'd have to get my personal Halloween playlist if you want one that long though.  It's the most wonderful time of the year! Without any further ado, here are your 2026 Halloween recs: Mirotic by TVXQ! You may be wondering why I'm putting this song in a Halloween playlist when it's famously known for being quite sexy, and sexiness alone does not qualify it for this playlist. However, I'd like to point out the elements of the music video which would qualify it for this playl...
Read more

Song Review:: Ken (VIXX): PUZZLE- 신아브로 (Gradually)

Image
Release date: 2024 December 26 Album tracklist: 신아브로 (Gradually) , Bye My Only Universe, We Are Forever, Make Me Strong, Dear Little Star Album runtime: 18 minutes  I don't normally include the Korean titles because it's inconvenient for me when I'm on the computer but given that this one has no English lyrics at all, it feels disingenuous to have the English title only. The timing is also hilarious for me given that I just covered both a VIXX song as well as a remake of one of Ken's songs. The alignment of the stars brings me a little bit of joy, and I'm glad for it to have happened. It's cute. I'm patiently waiting to see when VIXX puts out a new album, but in the meantime, I'm happy to see what the members do individually.  I accidentally left the whole album on and wandered away from the device. But I have to say that there are some songs on here where he is flexing a phenomenal voice, and wow . Also, take a look at that runtime. Yes.  There are enou...
Read more

Song Review:: Irubin (1TEAM): Foolproof {Debut}

Image
Release date: 2024 December 11 Album tracklist: Foolproof Album runtime: 3 minutes  Okay, so! Irubin is part of the 95z along with SCoups, Gon, and Minhyun, and he's actually a week younger than the latter. He was on a couple of trainee survival shows the same year NU'EST was on theirs. Almost made the debut team on BOYS24 and was the first boy trainee to be TOP1 on MixNine (where we also had a bunch of future ATEEZ and Treasure members), ended the show as the third ranked so he made the debut team, but that never happened. I actually remember him. Obviously I was focused on ATEEZ when I watched it this summer, but I do remember him. He went by the name Rubin then, and he was really good. He did finally debut with the group 1TEAM, which unfortunately disbanded within two years, and then he became a tattoo artist. Irubin is multi-talented then, and part of me is curious about why he decided to come back to music almost four years later, but I hope he has better luck as a soloist...
Read more

Song Review:: RE:WIND: Treading Water

Image
Release date: 2026 October 09 Album tracklist: Treading Water Album runtime: 3 minutes  It's been a hot minute since they released something, so I'm kind of stoked about this. I love their debut song, if you weren't here for this back then or you ignored it. It's pretty awesome. It's one of the most Backstreet Boys things I've heard in recent years. And also, the eldest one loves BTOB, so we already know he's a man of taste for top-tier vocals, and I can say that objectively because of how the other five groups reacted to BTOB on Kingdom (one of my favorite responses was "If they decide to dance too, we're done") and because of what they've won with those vocals. So the fact that one of them loves BTOB tells us his vocal standard, and it will likely continue to influence the vocals of this group because of the emulation thing humans do that's so fun. This feels like it might be leaning a little afrobeats, but I don't think that...
Read more