Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
SM Entertainment teased RIIZE with the pre-release of “Memories”, and while the scattershot approach didn’t have me onboard yet, it did effectively tease a more melodic potential compared to the direction of SME’s boy groups elsewhere.
Now they’ve dropped debut track “Get A Guitar“, which is sorta right up my alley. The retro synths and funky guitar are hard to resist, and the vocal-focused (no perfunctory rap verse?!) dance-pop track is exceedingly groovy throughout. The extended guitar solo effectively serves as a bridge (more like an interlude, I guess), and it’s another element that just seems intent on winning me over — even though hearing that section did make me wish they went even further/harder in that direction.
That said, if RIIZE were going to try and throwback to older boy groups, I do wish it also came with a real bridge that could’ve done something interesting either rhythmically or vocally, or that it had a vocal peak at all. While one doesn’t need to scream high notes constantly, it would’ve been nice to get that punctuation mark at some point, but it just never came. Also, settling for the “get get get get a guitar” repetition is solid enough as a hook, but in conjunction with the other issues, it makes it sound more musical than pop anthem in the end.
Anyway, if those complaints sound like they amount to “they had a chance to go peak SHINee and didn’t take it” then you’d be right, but between the chill concept, the melodic song, and even things like the clever execution of the choreography, it’s still hard to deny this was a promising debut overall. It’s about as seated for the future after a major boy group debut as I’ve been in a while.
