[Review] HIGH4 - Day By Day

The boys on HIGH4 are back with "Day By Day." This group first debuted with "Not Spring, Love, or Cheery Blossoms" earlier in the year, partnering with IU and then later on Lim Kim for a pair of impressive songs to start. "Day By Day" follows up on this by stripping down to the basics and focusing on what these guys are good at: vocals.

Sunggu and Myunghan already mesh really well, but in a song that's very simple and straightforward they're both at their best here. Verses are good, choruses are good, and adlibs are good. I never doubted their vocal capabilities from the start, and out of their handful of releases thus far "Day By Day" is easily the song that compliments their strengths the most. Moving away from the vocal performance, the rapping is still decent. Alex and Youngjun are both mediocre at best, and their insertions to this song could have been entirely omitted though that would leave them in an awkward position. Maybe if this group was just Sunggu and Myunghan they'd have a lot more success musically, I'm not too sure. This awkwardness is compounded in the MV, where during the chorus they have Alex in front. He's not actually singing, so he's just sort of...there. In front of the cameras doing nothing is pretty damn bizarre and awkward. Every HIGH4 video seem to like to hide someone until halfway through the song. First it was both rappers, then it was Sunggu, now it's Youngjun. The simplistic style of the video does well compared to the soft song, aside from the chorus / Alex shenanigans mentioned above.

It's a simple song with a simple video. I feel like the vocal half of HIGH4 is far superior and suffers a lot as a consequence of having rappers in the group but they're able to barely pull their weight and make ends meet. "Day By Day" might be their best sounding song, but "A Little Closer" was able to be more balanced.

[Overall: 80 / 100]

[Review] HIGH4 & IU - Not Spring, Love, or Cherry Blossoms

Ballad and IU sounds like a sweet deal to me, and with rookie group HIGH4 making their debut, supposedly with a few members knowing IU, sounds like a good recipe for a tasty ballad.

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Vocals: 9 / 10

Gotta hand it to HIGH4 and their management. If you’re gonna debut with a ballad, enlisting the help of IU is pretty genius. IU is one of the premier ballad masters with her sweet voice, and is perfect for the song and lyrics. On the flipside, the male voices from Myunghan and Sunggu provide rich lower ranges that provide a simply delightful combination with IU’s airy high notes. I have no other words. Absolutely. Delightful. The lone mark off is due to a lack of anything that stands out and says “Wow” which might be expected towards the end. Still, the phrase “Not spring, love, or cherry blossoms” has never sounded sweeter.

Appearance: 7 / 10

IU looks sweet, adorable, pretty, etc. As always. She is simply immune to aging, an ability others in the industry also share. I have no problems with the looks of HIGH4, and in fact I could instantly discern which members were the rappers through looks alone, but what’s up with the highlights / coloured hair? Just seems they chose random colours and the whole process is questionable. Since their debut song of choice was a ballad, having bright colourful hair seems out of place and they look very goofy.

Dance: ? / 10

Um. I guess there was something of a dance at the end. I’m not weighing this at all, of course, as there was as little choreography as there was actual dancing shown in the MV.

Rap: 4 / 10

Meh. I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse, but the main problem with the rapping is that it’s just out of place in this ballad. Not necessarily saying that raps have no place in ballads, because that’s not true. There are a handful of ballads with excellent execution of rapping (LeeSSang’s “Tears” and EXO’s “Baby Don’t Cry” are just 2 examples), but this falls rather flat. The voices of both Yongjun and Alex aren’t exactly the type of voice for rapping, and they remind me of BTOB’s “Ilhoon” at best, with slight nasal tones. Despite the already swayed opinions, I think the rapping pair could do better with a different type of song.

Music Video: 6 / 10

Okay, so I admit the set was cute, and allowed for some fun “interactions”, if you will. The rapping members in the car, heh. Other than that though, there’s not much going for this video. For a song about couples and “love, spring, and cherry blossoms”, I only saw the cherry blossoms (which, might I add looked like snow at some points). There were no other couples to be looked at or sought after, and I never thought that the set could be considered in springtime. Alright, I guess.

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Overall: 66 / 100

That rap, man. Absolutely murdered this score. Ignoring that, this ballad is very sweet. The mesh of voices between IU and HIGH4 is quite divine, and since the song is a ballad, everything is even better / more amplified. Just goes to show how much weight one category will pull, and more importantly how execution of rapping can be so crucial.