Album: Golden Child - Game Changer

This second full-length album from South Korean 10-piece Golden Child moves seamlessly from pop balladry to anthemic EDM without ever losing its footing.

With ghostly, submerged bell noises, ominous-sounding low brass, joined by strings and pounding drums that reaches a riotous crescendo, the pithy opener “Game Changer” certainly packs an incendiary charge, a figurative grabbing of the listener’s lapel which nicely sets up the dynamic rhythmic power of “Ra Pam Pam”.

Incorporating 1980s-style power guitar riffs, cowbell hits and a squiggly synth line embedded into its chorus, “Bottom Of The Ocean” – Golden Child’s first English-language track – is an unabashedly cheesy slice of pop rock. The album really takes flight with the rolling groove of “Fanfare” which casts everything including the kitchen sink into the mixer – brass samples, killing bassline, pleasingly weighty piano chords, sweeping strings, swelling analogue pads and a euphoric chorus which sweeps everything before it.

The intriguing coupling of Joochan and Bomin combine mellifluously in the easy-on-the-ear “Singing In The Rain”, while “Game” shrewdly juxtaposes the quick-fire, fluid rapping of TAG with the sweet-sounding timbre of Jibeom. Bathed in a warm reverb and packing in layer upon layer of ear candy, the surging standout “Spell” provides the strongest contrast imaginable with Daeyeol’s solo vocal which lights up the nostalgia-tinged ballad, “Out The Window”.

Featuring vocalist Y and rapper Jangjun, “Poppin’” gradually accrues additional textural layers as it moves from the stripped back bass and drums verse to the multilayered chorus, which breaks like a tidal wave on your senses. “That Feeling”, the only song to trouble the four-minute barrier, springs an element of harmonic surprise, with a chorus that takes you to somewhere entirely unexpected, and then it’s all hands on deck for the touching finale “I Know”, in which Joochan’s final line, sung solo, seems to hang like a question mark.

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