CURRENT #15: NOIR- LUCIFER

Released: April 27th, 2020

I can't remember the last time a permanent boy group with this many members debuted since Seventeen (Wanna One was a temporary group and was set to disband after 2 years, so they don't count), but I am curious to see if the size of the group has any influence on the quality of their title track Lucifer. Noir is under LUK factory, which honestly is one of the cooler agency names I have heard so far. I can definitely tell you that Lucifer sounds nothing like Shinee's single of the same name. It has a darker tone, and attempts to capture the wrath of the demonic mythical character Lucifer from storytelling, but the song's choice of genre and the lack of that extra push hinders it from really moving forward.

For a song that relies mainly on a trap-hop beat, it can only do so much to ignite some sparks and make up for the relatively-slow tempo of the beat. Vocal-wise, Noir suffers hugely in that department, and Lucifer fails to capitalize on a single hook. The "I'm the Lucifer" hook in the post-chorus needs more of that oomph to it, some extra vocal layers or another completely different part could have been done, instead of going back to the chorus part. Speaking of which, the chorus, although melodic, is hindered by the somewhat-raspy voices and the numerous breaks in between the vocals, which to me kills the flow of the song's vitality. The verses showed a lot of potential, and I particularly like the addition of the descending percussion synths in the background during the rap part, but the whole verse suffers once again from the turbulence caused by the brief pauses in the intro rap prior. Instead of letting the vocals do their singing and the rappers do their raps, there's the attempt to try to interchange between the two and although it's creative, it ends up sounding very messy if it's not done properly well. The same issue goes for the pre-chorus, where the vocalists should have just keep singing instead of pausing for that rap at the very end.

Noir should be praised for at least keeping the structure of a general track intact, but sometimes less is more. The best solution here was to keep things simple and let the members do their jobs well, but the tendency to complicate things here only made things a lot worse. It was unnecessary and it's ultimately preventing the members from showcasing their true abilities.

RATING: 7.1/10