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]
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