Tune Overview: tripleS – Are You Alive

After the discharge of many sub-unit tasks, tripleS are again with their latest full group album. Coincidentally, the title of their title monitor is identical query I’ve been eager to ask the Okay-pop business for many of this yr. Are you alive? This track does precisely what we’ve been conditioned to anticipate from tripleS. Followers will seemingly be happy, however anybody hoping for one thing completely different might want to look elsewhere.

As quickly as Are You Alive (깨어) opens with its “la la la” chant, I swear I’ve heard this track from tripleS earlier than. Whereas not precisely the identical melody, the cadence and efficiency appear to reference final yr’s Women By no means Die. I’m all for teams having signature sounds and melodies so long as they’re satisfying sufficient to warrant repetition, however I discovered this chant fairly limp final yr and much more so at the moment. For a gaggle with twenty 4 members, I suppose I anticipate one thing that sounds greater, extra energetic and positively extra formidable.

Making issues worse, this “la la la” chant principally is the track. Fragments of melody swirl round it, alongside loads of sing-talk that goes nowhere. This leaves listeners greedy onto a quite monotone, repetitive centerpiece. A beautiful bridge provides welcome texture and affords a glimpse of how tripleS’s music would possibly sound if their producers totally took benefit of the group’s massive configuration. We actually must be getting total choral moments from a gaggle like this. They’ve sufficient voices for a choir, however as a substitute they’re taking part in by Okay-pop’s lame guidelines. I imply, their producers have Japan’s Sakamichi Sequence and 48 Group all around the web as inspiration. Think about what they may do with that sprawling sound as filtered by way of Okay-pop’s perfectionist prism? The truth that they gained’t escape of their constrained field is extraordinarily irritating given their potential.

Grade: C-