The BTS singer-dancer’s solo debut accomplishes so much in simply six songs.
The solo debut from BTS’ Jimin begins off with one thing sudden—horns that sound like they’re coming from an energy-depleted carnival band, bleating out a number of jaunty notes earlier than utterly falling right into a heap. It’s not a harbinger of how the six songs that observe will go, but it surely does point out that Jimin is prepared to have enjoyable with the picture he’s cultivated over the decade-plus that he’s been within the world highlight. And whereas FACE does at occasions dwell on the existential what-ifs that plague twentysomething males who’ve the world’s gaze turned squarely towards them, for essentially the most half it’s a compelling showcase of the silky-voiced singer-dancer’s pop strengths.
“Face-off,” the monitor launched by that breaking-down band, delves deeper into the darkish aspect implied by that opening—it’s a high-gloss trap-pop reduce that permits Jimin to lash out at folks and issues that “check” and “kill” him, with a pre-chorus that swirls into synth-pop bliss earlier than crash-landing again into its jagged, visceral anger. “Dive,” the interlude that follows, supplies a right away respite; it’s glassy and dreamlike, interspersing discovered sounds—cheering crowds, Jimin operating (which, he informed Rolling Stone, he recorded on his telephone)—into its sonic escapism. The swirling ballad “Alone” additionally provides rigidity by tweaking its sonics, utilizing vocal results to underscore its depictions of emotional short-circuiting.
FACE reaches its focus on “Like Loopy,” a luxurious slice of contemporary Quiet Storm that reveals off Jimin’s limber singing type. It seems on FACE twice, first in Korean and later in English; its clean textures and glittery synths give the monitor a cooler-than-cool façade. However that’s belied by its bittersweet lyrics, that are bracketed by dialogue snippets that give additional context to why the tune’s narrator would possibly need to put his “feelings on ice.”
Maybe essentially the most intriguing monitor is “Set Me Free, Pt. 2,” a cacophonous mix of synth brass and vocal results that has an insistent refrain the place Jimin’s voice turns right into a siren name for self-liberation. Jimin’s processed yelps depict his agitation in a manner that means he desires to interrupt out of any containers through which he is perhaps positioned—and this twisty, but hooky EP is his first step towards doing so.