Listening to: Unfogiven – Le Sserafim
Year: 2023
Genre: K-Pop
First and foremost, I just wanna apologize for the lack of post yesterday as I had fallen asleep immediately after listening to this album and I woke up the next day. I don’t really wanna skip a day, so I’ll do a double whammy and count this as yesterday’s post.
Anyways, K-pop. Once stigmatized, it is now one of the most profitable and famous industries in the 21st century. Those that were ridiculed for liking K-pop before have had the last laugh.
I came into the K-Pop game pretty late when Twice was in their prime and the rest of the 3rd Gen is just hitting their peak. At least to say, I’ve stanned one or two groups in the years that I’ve been following K-pop and one of the groups rose from the ashes of a fallen group and an ambitious lead-up.
Le Sserafim, consisting of Hong Eunchae, Huh Yunjin, Kazuha Nakamura as well as previous IZ*ONE members, Kim Chaewon and Sakura Miwayaki. They once had a 6th member, but due to a rather controversial past, was forced out of the group.
Why am I telling you this? That is because today’s album is essentially a compilation of their previous EPs which was recorded when they still had 6 members. A rerecording was in session for their older tracks which all culminated in the 2023 full-length album.
A small fun fact about me, I don’t usually like listening to K-Pop without any visuals. I enjoy the combination of the audio and visual medium to enrich the listening experience which means that I’ve never consciously listened to K-Pop without visuals, let alone an entire album. This then marks as the very first K-Pop album I’ve listened to in its entirety. So what do I think of it?
Well, I initially thought I needed to lower my expectations as I’ve always thought that most K-Pop was catered to a very casual audience who are more focused on the idols and people behind the songs rather than the songs themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are K-Pop songs with great writing and instrumentation (still missing LOONA). But it never really is the focus.
But I was pleasantly surprised to hear how well-crafted Unforgiven is. It’s no Dark Side of the Moon, but it’s a really good pop album. I’ve the majority of the tracks here prior like the title track, “Unforgiven”, Antifragile, Impurities and Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife. But some tracks like Blue Flame really stuck out to me with its funky instrumentation which I’m always a sucker for like Twice’s Say Something.
The flow of the album is also quite interesting. It attempts to flow each song with short, somewhat abstract transitions like The Hydra and Burn The Bridge. Most of the songs are a compilation of different vibes, so the attempt to flow was very much appreciated.
Overall, I quite liked the album more than I thought I would. Besides stanning Le Sserafim for their performances and music videos, I can now confidently appreciate their songs on their own without really feeling the need to watch the music video (which is nice when scrobbling in Last.fm). I might even consider checking other K-Pop albums after this, but we’ll see very soon!
My total absolutely unbiased scoring:
Vibe: 7/10
Flow: 6/10
Mixing: 7/10
Complexity: 4/10
Consistency: 7/10
Emotional Factor: 5/10
Fave Track: Blue Flame
Gears Used:
Moondrop Spaceship
HiBy R6 III
Das it, das music
