EPEX are ready to drop their third (!) full album next week, but before that they’ve returned with pre-release Picasso (피카소). EPEX aside, July has been a pretty strong month for K-pop so far. Sure, there haven’t been a ton of awesome 9+ rated tracks, but there haven’t been many outright clunkers either. I mention this because Picasso is, unfortunately, a 100% certified clunker in my eyes.
The problems start right away, as the track unveils a truly ugly synth riff. I don’t know what the obsession is with producers finding the most abrasive sounds to fashion a song around, but my thinking is: if you wouldn’t want to listen to a loop in isolation why the heck would you want to listen to it as the base of a full song? Unfortunately, Picasso only doubles down on these grating sounds. Not only do we have that abrasive synth boring into you skull at every turn, but the song itself is equally prickly.
In some ways, it’s refreshing to hear a song I actively hate. At least it elicits a strong reaction. But boy, I never want to hear this again and will definitely be skipping it when the album is released. Picasso is like the combination of a jackhammer, squeaky door and a bunch of drunk bros shouting at each other as trap beats skitter endlessly in the background. And then out of nowhere, there’s a surprisingly great bridge floating like an oasis at the center of the maelstrom.
| Hooks | 5 |
| Production | 3 |
| Longevity | 5 |
| Bias | 3 |
| RATING | 4 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
thank you for sacrificing your ears so we don’t have too💗
And with that review in mind, we will not be listening💗
Yelling men over a earrattling EDM trap beat and terribly funny rapping/10♥️
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… what the fuck? (ಠ ⌓ ಠ)
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EPEX, I love you, I love your super solid singles run of Youth2Youth-Breathe In Love-Universe, but what the actual fuck is this abomination? (ಠ_ಠ) Literally, a jackhammer with the ugliest sounds or samples picked while blindfolded and a bunch of baseless posturing… I liked the bridge and the hyperpop-ish second verse though, it was lowkey cool. But still, I better hear a Youth2Youth 2.0 next week as an apology.
3.75 (5, 3, 4, 3) for me.
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Groups are not jukeboxes, they are artists. If you actually love a group, maybe you should give them a chance when they try something different, and think about why they produced that now.
And i don’t get the jokes about how it sounds like a jackhammer. This is drill. They clearly want it agressive. They know what they do.
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Will be listening to SHINee’s Picasso to cleanse my ears from this (btw, that’s the way to do an abrasive synth)
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My second favourite song from I’m Your Boy 🙂
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I mean, yeah, what sort of speakers or earbuds or what where when how does this sound sonorious? It sounds like a dental drill with a dying compressor on my ear buds.
I’m thinking the song’s only function is to be That Car at the stoplight with the subwoofers going past 10 past 11 to 12 or 16 or something and with the driver heading towards deafness. Lord knows what the inside of That Car looks or smells like. I don’t want to know.
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no
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I just know Picasso himself is ROLLING in his grave rn. If he was alive to hear this he would gouge his ears out and never paint again.
Gf/fiance/wife/whatever liked it. Will be considering a breakup. Stay tooned.
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my ears HURT from that horrible production…wtf.
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jfc
Let’s hope the title track is better.
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Oooo this sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie – well the mv sorta screams psycho killer, too. Don’t ask me how or why, but I kinda dig this. It reminds me of some industrial noise groups I used to listen to back in the day.
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I really like the relentlessness. Good energy. The video is primo K-pop angst. But that bridge needs to fly away and find a new, happier home.
Overall, I dig it alright. It might grow on me. Epex are really hit and miss for me.
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Sounds good to me, as someone comfortable with abrasion. Reminds me of DPR LIVE – Legacy. The monorepeat hook works with a track like this. Not sure how I feel about the bridge… leaning towards it providing a slightly ironic, fun quirk. On to my K-hiphop playlist it goes! 8.25
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They need to disband.
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I don’t have an issue with the hard-edge synth so much that it’s only two notes. Pretty hard to make something engaging out of that. I can get behind the moody prechorus/bridge parts. Speed the whole thing up a bit, pick a better hook, punchier/less skittery percussion, and you could get something kind of Lucifer-adjacent (which uses three notes in the hook!)
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