CURRENT #19: DAY6- ZOMBIE

Released: May 11th, 2020

At first glance, Day6 may seem like another typical boy group, but that is not the case. Day6 is a pure rock band, playing their instruments live in almost every single album release. As unique as this is, there is a reason in the first place why groups like these are rare. Rock music in South Korea has yet to establish a footprint, although it's gaining more and more popularity. Band groups like CN Blue and FT Island were able to successfully continue this trend in the late 2000s and early 2010s, while seamlessly fitting into the mold as K-pop idols. DAY6 has also steadily built a fanbase through their image, and Zombie should easily find a home in their music collection of recordings. If you're a huge fan of them, then Zombie is absolutely the track for you. If you're a normal listener like me, it's pretty respectfully average.

The biggest pitfall with Zombie and the genre particularly is that without a strong infectious hook to grab listeners' attentions, a song like this would have to rely entirely on dynamics from beginning to end, which usually means having to mesh its sound with other genres. CN Blue as a live band group was successful because of their reliance on catchy phrase hooks and loops. Dreamcatcher as a K-Pop group in this genre has been able to successfully combine rock with other instruments and beats to increase the unpredictability of their tracks and generate variabilities. Zombie does neither of the above. Zombie relies entirely on chord progressions to progress through the track and while its used effectively in the verses, it gets tiring and loses its steam about halfway through. The beat also stays consistent throughout, and its relatively slow tempo fails to create any spark of energy that would light up the track. The only parts that decently changes things up are the post-chorus and the second chorus, but the change is more abrupt than gradual. Some variety is introduced in the bridge, where a modulation is introduced, but it fails to reach a climax with those new elements.

As a live group, DAY6's arsenal of instruments is pretty limited, and while that's understandable, it's not an excuse for failing to create some kind of platform. I get that the song is supposed to exhibit an emotional side of themselves, and their vocals are excellent in Zombie, but what happened to the additional harmonies and the vocal layers to increase the amplitude? The result of all of this is song that leaves a lot of things to be desired, most notably the lack of that extra oomph.

RATING: 7.0/10