Since leaving Cube Entertainment, Pentagon’s Kino has embarked on a solo career filled with quirky electropop and interesting ideas. I enjoyed his last EP quite a bit and new title track Taxi builds upon that sonic foundation while adding a generous sprinkle of 80s synth and occasional bursts of rock intensity.

So many acts are drawing upon this ‘charismatic talk over sparse electro production’ approach and it’s become a pretty big sticking point for me. The difference here is a feeling of authenticity. There is no agency dangling this trend over Kino. It’s what he wants to do and you feel that through the performance. It helps that his phrasing and flow switch up enough to never become monotonous or overly predictable. Then, of course, there’s the old school (as in, birth of hip-hop old-school) electro production, which does a nice job mining from an overly used era in a fresh way.

With that said, Taxi isn’t nearly as hooky as I had hoped it would be. Apart from its catchy instrumental, the song’s lack of melody makes each segment blend into one longform spoken-word approach that lacks exciting climaxes. The composers could have done much more with the chorus, even if that simply meant adding a more memorable instrumental twist to differentiate the energy. I do enjoy the track, but too much of Taxi comes across as fantastic ideas in need of fuller development.

Grade: B-