Final week, AKMU’s Chanhyuk pre-released the sluggish burn Out Of My Thoughts as a teaser for his second full size album. The album has a retro, synth-kissed sound with an idiosyncratic aptitude totally different from the hyper-commercialized 80’s revivalism that took over pop music within the early-2020s. With that mentioned, title monitor Vivid LaLa Love (비비드라라러브) is much less depending on synth and extra targeted on Chanhyuk’s quirky supply.

Ever since his debut as a part of AKMU, Chanhyuk’s songwriting has boasted a singular taste that may’t be discovered wherever else. I may simply think about Vivid LaLa Love as an AKMU single and it would really work higher with two distinct voices driving it. As a solo Chanhyuk monitor, it nonetheless pops. Vivid LaLa Love invitations us into his world in an easygoing method. The melody is instantly hummable and repeated so usually that it’ll be lodged in your mind whether or not you need it there or not. The strummed percussion provides to this rhythm, giving the tune an apparent throughline.

On the unfavourable aspect, all this repetition is… properly, repetitive. There’s solely so many instances you possibly can sing “vivid lala love” and make it sound contemporary. The monitor wears out its concepts shortly and loses inspiration about midway by. What begins out as a real toe-tapper ends with me getting distracted by no matter else is happening round me as a result of the tune by no means actually goes wherever.

Grade: C+