BESTie Love Emotion Review
Girl group BESTie made their return with Love Emotion May 8. Hae Ryeong, Hye-Yeon, Dae Hye, and U Ji have a solid hit on their hands with the album if people are willing to listen. Their vocals are strong and pleasing and carry on throughout the album. Perhaps the only downfall is their version of “Mamacita” didn’t make it on to Love Emotion. If it did, the album would have been 20 percent cooler.
“Excuse Me,” the album’s promoted track, opens the album. The speak-easy sound makes the song easy to enjoy and fun to groove to from beginning to end. The chorus is especially fun and highlights BESTie’s sparkly personalities. The spoken “excuse me” is often cute and doesn’t detract from the actual song. The portion where they sing “left, right, side to side” changes the tempo of the song in a good way to add different layers. “Excuse Me” is a fun song to brighten up the day.
“Hush Baby” is an enjoyable mid-tempo dance track with hints of disco. It’s a refreshing song that covers moving slow in a relationship, hinting that BESTie wants an actual romance and not a date-and-dash relationship. The vocals are pure and sweet to where it’s easy to pick out individual voices. The harmonies sound amazing as well. The only drawback is how the song ends abruptly.
The third track is “Single Bed.” The song is about wanting an ex to come back. The song should be a sad one given the subject matter, but it’s surprisingly not. The beat feels like it belongs on the ballroom circuit and fits perfectly with the subject matter. The rises and falls with the beats make it easy to imagine someone wrestling with wanting the ex-boyfriend back while trying to move on. The girls sound great in the song, and it easily could have been selected as the promotional song.
“I’m So Fine” livens up the mood again. While it’s catchy, it’s not exactly the best song on the album. The rap portions make the song slightly less enjoyable, as does the whistle in the instrumentals. The overall sound feels less polished than the other songs too. There are also times when the singing sounds slightly screechy, making “I’m So Fine” the album’s weakest link.
With the instrumental version of “Excuse Me” excluded, Love Emotion wraps with “이런 날.” BESTie does ballads well because their voices are suited for them. The song is pretty without being overwhelming, and because it doesn’t feel processed, there is a raw quality to it that makes it a classic ballad. At times, it has hints of the ballad sound from early 2000s-era K-Pop which makes it even more bittersweet and enjoyable.
Love Emotion is one of May’s most solid comebacks or debuts. It’s always a shame that BESTie doesn’t get the recognition they should have because they are among some of the better group vocalists out presently. With that said, Love Emotion earns an A-.
Love Emotion is available on iTunes now.
—-Joelle Halon