Agust D – aka BTS’ Suga – opens his first studio album below the moniker in a temper that isn’t generally related to the rapper’s solo work. “D-Day is coming, it’s a fucking good day,” he tells us after a chorus that declares: “Future’s gonna be OK / OK, OK, have a look at the mirror and I see no ache.” Right here, he sounds nearly joyous, as if this sense of contentedness is a revelation.
It is sensible – since he launched his debut mixtape below the alias in 2016, Suga’s work exterior of BTS has been usually linked to anger, even when – notably on 2020’s ‘D-2’ – there’s at all times been extra to it than that. However the spine of ‘D-DAY’ is the concept of liberation, and this file finds him largely transferring on from these previous, barbed feelings, setting himself free and stepping totally into the function of a smart social commentator and – at instances – protector.
Though Agust D’s previous anger might need reached boiling level and evaporated away, that doesn’t imply ‘D-DAY’ is all rainbows and sunshine because it shares his perspective on the world. On the smooth strut of ‘Polar Night time’, he takes on the divisiveness that’s tearing society aside and factors out the failings within the righteous attitudes we take towards our fellow residents. “In the event you’re not on the identical aspect, we’re enemies,” he observes. “An excessive alternative / Political correctness each time it fits me / However hold my mouth shut when it’s too bothersome for me / Selectively hypocritical, an uncomfortable perspective.” Because the verse progresses, so too the disdain in his voice grows.
On ‘Haegeum’ – the title of which refers to each the normal string instrument that weaves all through and the Korean phrase for liberation – he makes a case for doing away “with the nonsense” that clutters on-line and IRL, and finds a brand new freedom. “Freedom of expression / May very well be the explanation for anyone’s dying,” he says pointedly. “May you continue to think about that freedom?”
A few of that previous Agust D anger begins to simmer once more on ‘HUH?!’, which options his BTS bandmate J-hope and is centred round a shadowy drill basis. “What the shit have you learnt about me?” Suga calls for. “Fuck that shit you suppose you realize ‘bout me.” It’s not rage only for rage’s sake, although, his standing as much as misconceptions linked into his observations later within the tune: “Thousands and thousands of stories protection and gossip, the villain on this age of data.”
If ‘D-DAY’ presents a liberation from feeling a sure means, then much more so it represents a liberation from letting the previous and future – eras and the issues which have occurred or will occur – management us. “The previous is gone, the long run is much away,” Suga tells us. “What are you afraid of?” It’s a topic he returns to much less explicitly on the closing ‘Life Goes On’ as he particulars emotions of worry introduced up by previous reminiscences. As a substitute of letting them have energy over him, although, he acknowledges what they’re – innocent ghosts and residue of previous lives.
Liberating ourselves from the previous and changing into ignorant to the issues we’ve skilled and gone by way of are two very various things and the album’s standout tune ‘Amygdala’ delves again into a few of Suga’s most painful moments – his mom’s coronary heart surgical procedure, his shoulder harm, his father’s liver most cancers. “Is all this struggling for my very own good?” he questions over murky rock riffs and clipping beats, earlier than suggesting that trauma led him to a extra resilient rebirth. “What didn’t kill me solely made me stronger / I’m blooming like a lotus flower now.”
‘Amygdala’, as you would possibly count on given its subject material, is completely heart-wrenching. Within the refrain, the musician makes a transferring plea to the titular a part of his mind that processes trauma: “My amygdala / Please rescue me, please rescue me / My amygdala / Please pull me up, please pull me up.” As he does so, his voice turns into uncooked and raspy, layers of autotune solely including to the cracks of emotion.
As a complete, and regardless of the adjustments he’s gone by way of through the years, ‘D-DAY’ feels inimitably Suga – or Agust D. The wave of collaborators that seem on the file don’t distract from that, however as an alternative complement him. On ‘HUH?!’, J-hope drops his voice right into a menacing near-whisper, bringing new dynamics to his bandmate’s pressing supply. Penultimate observe ‘Snooze’, in the meantime, options two new inventive associates – The Rose’s Woosung and the legendary late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over Sakamoto’s regular, poignant piano, Woosung’s velvet voice brings out the mild, comforting message in Suga’s lyrics, which provide acceptance and assist to aspiring artists aiming to comply with in his footsteps.
A wealthy and assorted album that programs from atmospheric instrumentals (‘Interlude : Daybreak’) to the graceful groove of ‘SDL’, on ‘D-DAY’ Agust D is an unstoppable, thought-provoking drive, wrapping up his trilogy in peak type. These are songs we are able to use to assist information us by way of the trials of modernity, whether or not as lecturers or as allies by way of the darkish. As he places it on ‘Polar Night time’, “The world’s bullshit, however you don’t should be / So open your eyes and see the actual world.”
Particulars
- Launch date: April 21, 2023
- File label: HYBE, Large Hit Music
