CURRENT #14: IMFACT- LIE

Released: April 20th, 2020

Prior to doing my research, I was not exposed to the boy group Imfact at all, so I was a little surprised when I found out they debuted way back in January 2016. Imfact is under Star Empire entertainment, the same agency as second generation group Z:EA. Looking at their background, Imfact is one of the older groups in the current generation to debut, with 3 out of the 5 members born in 1993. Sadly, the group has yet to achieve even the slightest kind of success, with their debut comeback album sales barely hitting 5000 and declining comeback after comeback. Is their first extended album release and title track Lie worthy of recognition and possibly catapulting Imfact to stardom? Maybe.

Lie takes on EDM with a piano chord progression, an element that is frequently heard in popular EDM hits (most notably Chainsmoker's Something Just Like This) as the main melody. Typical of the genre, the song's verse starts off slow and smooth with vocalized sound effects in the background, but gets upbeat pretty fast. Lie slows it down briefly again for the pre-chorus, kicking in the synths to amp it up before the chorus. At this point there hasn't been too many surprises, as the chorus continues to follow the same structure of other predecessors, although Lie's beat drop isn't as dramatic and replaces the synths with ones more percussion-like, giving it a soft silky-like texture to it. I thought it was the post-chorus, until the synth chord progression plays again, and a bombardment of unnecessary autotuned vocals come in. The particular hook in the actual post-chorus is done well, but the autotune after does not compliment it nicely. I am not a huge fan of post-chorus rap breaks, as their relatively slow tempos and pace of raps slow the song down sluggishly and drains it of momentum. This one is no exception, and it simply would have been better if the beat had come back in a dramatic manner or if the rhythm of the rapping was a lot faster. Once again, I've never been a fan of autotuned vocals in general, and the second verse does no justice to that. The bridge is quite stale in comparison to the energy of the entire chorus, but that's usually the result when you use the same chord progression, even despite a couple of high notes blurted out at the end of that certain part.

Overall, Lie showcases the beautiful instrumentals of an EDM track, without going too extreme on both ends of the spectrum. The vocals though, do need some work and some lesser autotune would have been nice. The musicality of Lie will hopefully give inspiration and possibly a seed to blossom Imfact's rise of popularity, because in the end, all it takes is one hit song, and that one song usually should have well-composed instrumentals.

RATING: 7.3/10