Close Your Eyes will be returning with an album at the end of the year, but they’re teasing the project today with a pre-release. I’m a fan of this group, but never know what to expect from them. Each album has been markedly different from the last, which means I have strong preferences about which sounds I enjoy most from them (debut era for the win!).
This time, they’ve taken a jazzy approach for Open Your Eyes, featuring pianist Yohan Kim and saxophonist Jacob Scesney. It’s a novel turn, especially in our world of cut-and-paste sample packs that cause so many songs to sound the same. I’m not a big fan of jazz music, so the genre itself gives me pause, but I like how they’ve meshed it with more classic K-pop tropes. And really, elements of the genre have colored all forms of music for decades. It makes an especially strong conduit for hip-hop tracks and Open Your Eyes‘ free-flowing vibe takes advantage of this.
The song’s selling point is its ultra-smooth chorus. It’s short and sweet — more of a “hook” than a full-on refrain — but the vocal layering here is gorgeous. As far as vibes go, this one’s pretty elite. I just wish parts of the instrumental hit harder than they do. I know that’s not really the point with a track like this, but jazz’s improvisational style could have resulted in some very compelling breakdowns at key moments.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8.25 |
Grade: B
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
The song vibe reminds me a bit of ‘Jungle’ discography just with more hip-hop elements. In normal times I would bemoan the reason for wasting these types of melody in hip-hop track, but now I am actually quite intrigued by this uncommon combination. It will be quite interesting if the whole album actually have this type of jazz sounds trope.
LikeLike
chorus is beautiful, lovely harmonies and vocal layering. but outside of that, the songwriting is all over the place for me.
LikeLike
Oh I love these guys. Uniqueness 100/10. I’ll take this all day over the shouted repeat word choruses from most other acts.
Agree it feels a bit disjointed, but I have a feeling this will grow on me over time. Even if it doesn’t, I agree, the vocal layering in that hook/chorus is beautiful. One of the few groups that harmonizes, and I can’t get enough of it.
LikeLike
This makes a lot of sense as a prerelease as it shows another side of them (like SOB did but its polar opposite). I can imagine it serving as an intro to the upcoming album in the way “Close Your Eyes” did with their first album. Kudos to them for doing something different, I’d rather listen to this than the usual coffeehouse sludge.
LikeLike