These girls really never stop do they.
Since last years excellent ‘Raid of Dream’ album, the group have pretty much been promoting non stop between Korea and Japan. While their Korean work has been phenomenal, their Japanese songs have been a little more hit or miss. Last years Breaking Out failed to fully capitalise on the groups hard rock sound, resulting in a track that lacked identity. Thankfully, new single Endless Night sees the girls go full on heavy metal and the results are fantastic.
Let me get some of issues with the track out of the way first. Opening with an incredibly bombastic collage of aggressive guitar riffs and hard hitting percussion, the track launches into the comparatively subdued opening verse. It’s the most straightforward rock style that Dreamcatcher have tackled yet, and in a way it’s kind of nice. The arrangement is easily the most powerful the group have ever tackled, preferring a full blow aural assault over a strong melody. Which brings me to my only gripe of the track. While the riffs are brilliant, the melody kind of lags behind. I understand this isn’t the goal for a song within this vein, but they have pulled off such tracks before but with much stronger melodies. The rap verse also felt quite out of place, but it seems as though it doesn’t bother me as much as it does to most.
Ok time to gush. What Endless Night lacks in melody, it absolutely makes up for in its relentless head-banging energy. The incredible drumming, courtesy of Coldrain‘s Katsuma is incredibly riveting and provides an excellent backing track to the songs unwavering pulse. But what really hits me the most, is the hook. Before I fell too far down the kpop rabbit hole, I was huge fan of J-rock bands such as Spyair and The Oral Cigarettes and DOES. They combined this kind of hard instrumtation with larger than life hooks. And that’s exactly what Endless Night revels at. While the melody isn’t as potent as some of the groups other tracks, the refrain is among the groups strongest, hitting some of my musical soft spots right in the bullseye. The electrifying bridge is also a highlight, combining an electrifying electric guitar solo with soaring vocals to create the perfect setup for that bombastic climax.
While it’s not the strongest single the group has released in the past year, it easily maintains the high watermark set by tracks like Scream earlier in the year. The girls are on a roll, and I don’t see them stopping any time soon.
Verses: 8
Chorus: 10
Production: 8
Performance: 9
Final Rating: 8.75/10
KBopped 