It’s been enjoyable to observe G-Dragon’s Dwelling Candy Dwelling go from shock midnight drop to buzzy MAMA Awards stage to chart-conquering mega hit. It’s what somebody of his stature in Ok-pop deserves and its success has made his long-awaited return really feel like an excellent larger occasion. Talking of “long-awaited,” the roll-out for his newest album has been fairly prolonged. Dwelling Candy Dwelling debuted about three months in the past and this prolonged promotion has constructed each anticipation and impatience. Fortunately, GD has delivered two new music movies to go with the album.

First on the docket is Drama. Regardless of being identified for his energetic rap and rock songs, G-Dragon has a powerful lineage of ballads underneath his belt. From Butterfly to That XX to Untitled, 2014, his quieter work is a few of his best and enduring. I occur to like when his impish tone twists an in any other case simple ballad into one thing that drips with pathos. Drama follows this strategy with added vocal results to color an much more idiosyncratic tone. For a lot of the track, this method works in addition to you’d hope. The primary half of Drama fires on all cylinders, from its haunting piano loop to the stark manufacturing that often drops out solely.

Drama can be okay throughout its second half, however at this level it feels just like the observe has exhausted its tips and desires to maneuver someplace else melodically or sonically. There is nuance and alter occurring, however the composition can’t fairly hit the great emotional heights of its apparent predecessor Untitled, 2014. That’s a really excessive bar to cross, however a tempo shift or spike in… effectively… drama might need accomplished the trick. Because it stands, this can be a stable addition to the album and the kind of track solely G-Dragon can pull off on this approach, nevertheless it requires endurance for a payoff that by no means actually arrives.

Grade: B