Adagio Apassionato

A new wave to earth album, a new wave to earth sound – so of course, a new wave to earth album review! I absolutely loved ‘bad pieces.’ The album pivots the band towards a more rock-focused sound and shifts to unconventional instruments that are not common to their repertoire. A lot of the songs evoke a sound that is usually typical to vocalist/guitarist Daniel Kim’s other band, The Poles. Meanwhile, The Poles’ new music seems to be shifting towards wave to earth’s signature sound. I see this as Daniel coming through with a harmonized creative vision for both the bands – where both retain their underlying flavours and yet continue to explore and innovate in their sounds. Another interesting facet is that the lyricism features not solely Daniel’s vision, but brings in bassist John Cha’s voice more poignantly than usual, and, for the first time, allows us to explore drummer Dong Q’s lyrical vision. With this blend of voices in the writing, I find the lyricism to be less metaphorical and ...

wave to earth recently released ‘heaven and hell,’ a poignant song with a very emotional and bold message. While the song has multiple interpretations, I see it as a critique of the rigid, binary rules that many impose on others in the name of religion. Upon watching the music video and listening deeply to the song, it featured distinctly queer undertones, and I found it speaking a similar message as Conan Gray’s song ‘Found Heaven’ (which I have reviewed here ). In this post, I’ll examine both religious weaponisation of morality and its suppression of queer identities in my comparison of wave to earth and Conan’s songs!  Both songs are stylistically completely different. Conan takes on this theme openly, boldly and virtuosically in his song. He very explicitly speaks out his critique of religion being used as a weapon against queer people, the forcefulness of his message stemming from his own experience as a queer person. Meanwhile, wave to earth’s take is more contemplative, emot...

CW: Mention of suicidal ideation in the analysis for the song 'Merry Go Round.' If this topic triggers you, please avoid that section! I'll add another CW before it turns up in case anyone wishes to skip. BTS IS BACK! I was so, so happy to hear ARIRANG as BTS’ return to music. It makes me ecstatic as an ARMY to see the band I’ve loved for over 9 years now creating with the same passion, dedication and intention that they always have – and to feel ARMY’s love for them as strong as it has ever been! On the first listen of the entire album, I was really able to appreciate how BTS have revived the hip-hop styles and elements that featured in a lot of their older numbers from around when they first debuted. Everything that characterised albums like ‘O!RUL8,2?,’ ‘2 Cool 4 Skool’ and ‘Dark & Wild’ was blended perfectly into this album! I really loved seeing BTS get back in touch with these sounds from their debut days. I also really liked that many of the songs were in Korean,...