Be Boys made their debut final 12 months with the well-intentioned, however considerably clumsy, I’m So Sorry However I Love You. Although I didn’t love that music, I appreciated their brilliant, upbeat power and positively have room in my library for extra music of this model. New single Slam Dunk continues the youthful verve however pulls their sound in a extra retro hip-hop course.

Retro hip-hop is one in every of Okay-pop’s favourite touchstones. It’s wonderful that — all these years later — we nonetheless hear so many songs on this style. Positioned inside that pantheon, Slam Dunk doesn’t do a lot for me. Groove is so necessary right here and the manufacturing on Slam Dunk feels fairly generic. The music additionally commits the cardinal sin of fracturing its groove greater than as soon as, continually altering momentum and power. Simply as your head begins nodding, the music upends itself into one thing new. This concludes in a hyper chant-shout hook harking back to NCT.

Past these structural points, Slam Dunk simply isn’t that catchy. There are hooks, for positive, however none that totally compel consideration. Having heard so many tracks identical to it over the previous decade, Slam Dunk‘s well-worn tropes are likely to fade into the background. With no killer music to again them up, it’s actually troublesome to face out.

Grade: C-