KARD’s transition to a more harder edged sound has so far yielded some less than impressive results. Bomb Bomb and Dumb Litty were two of my least favourite tracks from last year and while it has since grown on me, Red Moon wasn’t much better. And while I understand that this is more an issue with personal taste than the group themselves, I’ve just never understood the appeal of pure noise music like this. Thankfully, new single Gunshot is the strongest iteration of the groups new sound yet.
Now while Gunshot does absolutely nothing new, there’s an undeniable sense of swagger surrounding it. This isn’t the kind of fake posturing that’s characterised many of their past tracks but something that genuinely feels organic. The group have some real charisma and it’s on full display here. And while most of Gunshot is the kind of big room trap banger that we’ve seen all too much this year, it’s supported by performers who know how infuse almost every moment with enough character to really get it over the line. But much like most of their past material, the song is just a little too in your face. Now it’s not as distracting as something like Bomb Bomb but it does verge a little on grating.
Thankfully, most of Gunshot‘s flaws are straightened out by the strong melodic chorus at its centre. It’s a song that forgoes some of the common pitfall of many songs of this nature by actually giving us something other than a limp instrumental breakdown. And that alone feels great. It also helps that the chorus we do get is genuinely quite good, powered forward by Jiwoo and Somin’s great vocals. It’s these interjections of anthemic melody that help transform Gunshot into a much more palatable single. Now all we need is a more inventive backing and we could have something really special on our hands.
Verses: 7
Chorus: 8
Production: 7
Performance: 8
Final Rating: 7.5 / 10
KBopped 