So how did they pan out?
Let’s find out, shall we?
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Track List:
1. The Fact
2. Fiction
3. Back to You
4. You
5. Freeze
6. Virus
7. 불러보지만 (Calling You)
8. 비가 오는 날엔 (On Raining Days)
9. Lightless (Unplugged Version)
10. Fiction (Orchestra Version)
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To say B2ST have come a long way from their 2009 debut is something of an understatement. It has taken them several mini-albums and overcoming a rough start to get to where they are now, but they’ve worked hard, grown, and developed into quite the force amongst the boy bands of today.
When B2ST debuted, one of the very first pieces of information to surface about these six (Dong Woon, Doo Joon, Hyun Seung, Jun Hyung, Ki Kwang, and Yo Seob) was that they were either failed solo artists, idol rejects, or something in between. They came from a purgatory of sorts; misfits taken in by the talent agency Cube Entertainment, who gave them another chance at the stardom few of them were oh-so close to achieving.
Acknowledging the pasts of say, Hyun Seung – the member who was a hair away from making it into the Big Bang – or Ki Kwang – aka AJ, the forgotten solo artist – is crucial to fully appreciating the music of B2ST and all of their achievements thus far.
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Musically, B2ST began as a cookie-cutter, run of the mill boy band that offered nothing more than the same old auto-tuned vocals sold on a silver platter of abs and biceps. B2ST’s singing voices, even Yo Seob’s at the time, were close to mediocre with little sense of unity as a group. They were average at best, and with a group as precise as SHINee overshadowing all rookies during that time period, B2ST’s 2009 debut fell to a lackluster standard and left very little to savor.
However, B2ST possessed something that other rookies seemed to have lacked, and it’s what ultimately kept them reappearing on the scene time and time again: B2ST had a drive to lay it all out there – the good and the bad. You didn’t need to have followed B2ST through every single variety show or waking hour of their existence to see their thirst to always be better. It was evident from one mini-album to the next and in the consistency of their performances. Many groups go up and regress, but B2ST have been getting better as a pop group season after season.
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As they trickled teasers for their “Fiction And Fact” album this week, the improvement from their previous endeavors to where they are now is monumentally impressive this time.
It was a very risky move to release an album full of mellow overtones rather than something filled with pounding beats and drilling synths (as B2ST have done before), but they have somehow managed to inject those idiosyncrasies into “Fiction And Fact” without overwhelming the softness of it all.
The album opens with “The Fact” (video above); this song is short enough to be considered an intro-track, but long enough to enjoy as a full song. “The Fact” is slow and features a simple instrumentation with a chiming guitar part. Like in last year’s releases, the production of this song and the rest of this album is stellar. Right from the start, there’s a clear indication that B2ST wont be recycling any of their old styles (like they did from “Shock” to “Soom“), which is always a challenge for a pop group. This time, they have gone down an R&B road while successfully keeping it 100% pop with very melodic structures and phrases.
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“Fiction” transitions almost flawlessly from “The Fact”, laying down those very same heart-wrenching melodies you hear in the first song.
About a year ago, I had argued that it was the production that brought B2ST to life, but today, it’s the complete opposite. The production in “Fiction” is like a final gloss layered above a well sung and well delivered lead single. When you can strip away an amazing production from a song and still have the remains of something brilliant, that’s when you know you’ve nailed it.
As a song, one of the best parts of “Fiction” is the chorus, not because it’s catchy, but because of the way it was pieced together. There are essentially two things going on: a broad set of lines (sung by Hyun Seung and Yo Seob the first time around) and an underlying base, i.e. “fiction in fiction.” It’s so subtle, but remove one of those two things and the entire feeling is lost. It’s that kind of attention to structure that I’m impressed to hear out of Cube Entertainment right now, and guess what – it happens several times in this album.
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