“bomb” is the latest mini album for BE:LIFT LAB girl group, ILLIT. This release features 5 tracks. “Billyeoon Goyangi (Do the Dance)” serves as the title track.
1. little monster
The first track starts tranquil and builds into more of an electric dance song. The soothing vocals and synth is contrasted by an uptempo beat. This combination creates an interesting opposition. You might think it’s calm, but turns into something completely different. It is like this push and pull is a little monster of its own.
2. Billyeoon Goyangi (Do the Dance)
ILLIT returns with another fun and catchy title track. We start off with a symphonic sample from 80’s Anime, “The Five Star Stores”, that transforms into a disco/city pop track right away. The chorus is really catchy, and like the title, it makes you want to dance. The natural high-tones of some members, along with voice modulation, make it sound like a vocaloid kind of song. The big contrast between sections feels like different songs stitched together. Compared to their other title tracks, this one might not be as widely adopted, but it’s growing on me. This feels like an evolution of their sound.
3. jellyous
This one is giving me the same contrasting tracks as “little monster”. The vocals feel like one song, while the instrumental with its speed feels like another one. The track sounds like it’s using midi in essence of a retro video game sound. It is also reminding me of some tracks from the game, “Katamari Damacy.”
4. oops!
Every track on this album uses very different samples to turn them into dance tracks and this is no different. This one is very busy with several samples layered on top of each other. It is a bit grungy sounding and it feels like something you’d hear in a bustling city scene in a movie.
5. bamsopoong
Although this final track has a driving bassline like the other songs on this album, this feels a little more cohesive. The forces between the vocals and instrumental match up better here. The genre differs here again with more of a pop and rock sound with a very open sound space. This one feels perfect for cruising around with the roof down at sunset.
Summary
Within this album alone, you get five very different tracks. It can even be argued that it’s different from the rest of their discography. Even with all of these contrasty songs, it still feels very ILLIT and there aren’t many groups on the scene that sound like this. A lot of this album has an interesting composition of pairing uptempo dance tracks with reserved vocals. It may not appeal to most general audiences, but it offers a different sound.