LABOUM – 'AALOW AALOW'

Track List:

1. Intro
2. AALOW AALOW
3. Tasty
4. AALOW AALOW (Inst.)
5. Tasty (Inst.)



LABOUM has dropped their new single for the holidays! After training for four years, the band LABOUM was formed in 2014 under the NH Media-Nega Network venture GLOBAL H. The name "LABOUM" means "the party" in French. This is their third single album.

"Intro"  The intro is the main tune for their title track, buried and much less busy. The lyrics are a couple lines straight from the "Aalow Aalow" single: "Love also happens" and "you're like me." It's effective, if a bit meh.



"Aalow Aalow" is a light, poppy confection about a girl who's excited and shy at the same time over a boy she likes. The song itself is drenched in synth, which works well for the main verses, but in the chorus there's too much going on. It's like they were trying to mask the singers, and that's no good. It also lacks a hook, which is unfortunate. So not only is it too busy but also it's not catchy enough to really hold interest. The title, as near as I can tell, is sort of how you'd say "Hello, Hello" with an Aussie accent.

The track "Tasty" is more to my liking. You can hear the vocals much more clearly on this track, despite it being synth-driven. It's frenetic in parts and much more danceable than "Aalow Aalow," with even has some idol rapping. You can also hear them cut loose with the vocals, which is nice. Yulhee capably handles the rapping here, like usual, but it's Soyeon and ZN who shine during the chorus. The song is an ode to a boy who's "Tasty."  



This single is a mixed bag. The title track is okay, but it's certainly not what I would have led with. "Tasty" really takes home that prize with good hooks, fun rapping, and just an overall more interesting tune. I've enjoyed their previous singles, but frankly, I hoped for more.

MV REVIEW

Watch the girls as they play with plastic balls, a globe, a gum ball machine, etc in their new MV "Aalow Aalow!"

That's pretty much the whole video. They're inside a room with some vague, large patterns on the pastel walls. There's very little going on here, other than the girls acting somewhat bored and dancing. There appears to be about one prop per girl.



There's probably about 3 outfits total. One almost looks like skirts made out of shower curtain material, another is the cute outfits they wear while being shown on TV, still another is the white shirt/green skirt combo, and finally there are their outfits for the individual shots, which are ordinary street clothes.

I was hoping they'd do something with the dancing, but they don't show it very much. It seems like it might be halfway challenging, but there's no drops or any grandiose gestures, just footwork. I'm hoping it's more complicated than it looks.



If they wanted to do an MV on a budget, this would be it. It looked cheap, sadly. The sets were pretty sad, and while I'm sure Laboum did what they could with what they were given, they weren't given much. I don't know what happened here. The teasers looked like tons of fun. The girls all looked lovely here, but really, that's not enough. 

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