Around this time last year, One Pact delivered a sneaky little hit in the form of 100. That light funk sound fit them well, but they never followed up with something similar. One year later, new title track Sane couldn’t be any more different.

Sane plays with heavy textures, clobbering the listener with walls of distortion and aggressive percussion. I’m all for an audio assault if you can find some way to pair it with a contrasting element (like a great pop melody). But too often in K-pop, cacaphonous production is paired with cacaphonous performance until we have nothing but… cacaphony. Sane‘s chanted hook is actually very effective as a centerpiece, but the entire song is delivered with the same hulking energy and this ultimately makes it feel boring rather than thrilling. I expect this takeaway is the exact opposite of what Sane is trying to accomplish, which makes the execution a bit of a fail in my eyes. Still, I admire the song’s sheer chutzpah (even if said chutzpah only lasts about two minutes).

Grade: C