1. First Time
2. Blood
3. Letting Go
4. Sing Me
5. I Hope
6. Hunt



Rookie group DAY6 comes back as a quintet, after the departure of Joon Hyuk, to release their second EP 'Daydream.' All of the members took part in writing, composing, and arranging this disc, which is great -- I love what happens when a record company leaves a band to their own devices -- it almost always results in a better product than a few canned songs the producer chose. Young K was the producer, in this case.

"First Time" starts out with garage band style guitars, but ends up as a doo-wop tune in the main verses. Not being a particular fan of the '50s, it doesn't do much for me. I'm not crazy about the falsetto either. The strengths of the tune lay in the guitar work, which I am a fan of. It lends some enjoyment to a tune which might otherwise be lacking. The lyrics are about saying goodbye to the girl for the first time.


 
"Blood" is absolutely epic at the beginning, a smooth, bass-heavy tune with a great beat. It switches up things to disco when it hits the chorus, which falsetto is actually ideal for. It's a hella fun time, and has the upbeat style that I crave. The raps are pretty good here, too -- they just make the song even better. This song is about how she has to see blood (not the correct use of the term) because of how she hurt them.

The title track "Letting Go" is a power ballad that follows the traditional structure of such songs, going from soft during the main verses to a harder chorus, the lead singer belting his lyrics while the rest harmonize (they switch off in this band, though). There are some raps after the first chorus to give it a little variation, but they don't save it much. It just sounded bland to my ears, like most power ballads. The lyrics are about a breakup, about letting her go.



"Sing Me" is more my style, from beginning to end, and likely the song I would have led with. It's got kind of a soft rock thing going in the beginning, with electric guitars, but progresses to hard rock in the chorus. Wonpil has a unique tenor that glides into your ears and sets fire to the chorus here. There's an absolutely dope rap line too. The song is asking her not to forget them, as they'll be there for her forever.

The fifth track, "I Hope," is a lively hard rocker, with some killer guitar work. There's some tension built in the main verses, that pays off during the chorus. The high-note snap right before the chorus is genius. The drums chug along, equestrian-like, adding to the power of this beast. I also got a kick out of the bridge at the end, where the instrumentation drops off, leaving the vocals raw and exposed. The song itself is about how they hope she's happier without them.



"Hunt" reminds me a lot of a '50s tune, or a reconstituted 80s tune, as it tries to recapture the mood of that bygone era. Blasting horns accompany electric guitars, and this time they all come together and work extremely well. I like the repetition, the simpler hooks, the fiery leads, and it rocks harder than the '50s ever could. The whole idea is that he's "hunting" her, trying to make her his girlfriend.

Overall, it has a couple duds, and I'm not as impressed with it as I was with 'The Day,' but at the end of the day it's all subjective. They should be congratulated, however, for crossing genres without entirely abandoning the guitar rock format. Too often an artist might try their hand at another musical genre, with mixed results, which can make for an uneven album. This isn't bad, but a full third of it fell flat, making me think that an approach more faithful to their debut may have worked better. The songs that I really enjoyed were excellent, but weren't enough to bump the score point.

MV REVIEW

At first glance, it looks like an ordinary performance video. No plot, no dancing, and just shots of the members on their instruments or sitting around some sound stage.

But it's not. The devil is in the details, and I like those. The song does nothing for me, as I've previously stated, but the video is something else entirely. The video has the members duplicated, often in ingenious ways. You think they're one place, but they're really in another entirely as the camera pans around. The camera work here is pretty seamless, and the effect contains a few surprises. You expect to see one thing, and they deliver another thing entirely.



It's one more example of the often genius effects that come along with good camera work and a killer CGI crew. I can't begin to guess how difficult this was to pull off -- I'm not an effects guy -- but I was impressed. This was definitely fun to watch, and worth re-watching just to see exactly what they did. This MV has my stamp of approval.

Score

MV Relevance..........7
MV Production.........9
MV Concept.............9
Album Production...7
Album Concept........7
Tracklisting..............7

OVERALL...............7.7

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