[album review] epitone project - 낯선 도시에서의 하루

Epitone Project - 낯선 도시에서의 하루
released: june 7, 2012

1. 5122
2. 이제, 여기에서
3. 시차
4. 다음날 아침 (duet with 한희정)
5. 새벽녘
6. 초보비행
7. 국경을 넘는 기차
8. 떠나자
9. 우리의 음악
10. 믿을게
11. 터미널
12. 미뉴에트

★★☆


Cha Se Jung, more commonly known as Epitone Project, released his 2nd full-length studio album 낯선 도시에서의 하루 (One Day in a Foreign City) last week, and I think I have listened to it enough to say a bit about how I feel about it. I really enjoyed the album he released with Lucia, 자기만의 방, and there were a couple of songs that I really liked from his previous albums as well. However, this album was a bit of a disappointment for me. What I liked a lot about his sound was his usage of piano and there wasn't much of that on this album. Perhaps he's going through a guitar phase, because there was definitely more acoustic guitar than in the previous albums. I will still agree that this is a 'well-made pop album'; he is a decent enough producer and the songs are produced quite well. However, I never got that "feeling of walking in a foreign city far away", as the album title alludes to and Cha Se Jung himself expressed. I did get that the album tried to express feelings of nostalgia, longing and sadness, but most of the songs failed to fully convey those emotions to me. And I'm speaking as someone who was deeply touched by the album with Lucia and his 1st album. There were two songs in particular that really got me though - 우리의 음악 and 믿을게. These two songs were the most effective in their emotional delivery. The lyrics of these two songs are gorgeous, and I almost shed a tear during 우리의 음악. But the rest of the album failed to impress me, other than 5122 and 다음날 아침 (duet with Han Hee Jung) which were memorable enough. And I can't stop thinking about how great 믿을게 could have been if it was sung with someone who could emote better with his voice.

I think the main reason that this album didn't impress me as much as I expected it to was because of the lack of instrumentals and unfortunately, Cha Se Jung's singing. I'm not saying that he is a terrible singer; his songs just work infinitely better with different vocals, preferably female voices. I looked back to some of my favourite songs with him and majority of them were either instrumentals (mainly piano) and duets or songs that featured female artists. This album was mostly sung by Cha Se Jung and I think his voice hindered the experience a bit... which is an awful thing to say, I know.

Another thing that really disappointed me is how similar his music is to Toy (Yoo Hee Yeol)'s. I know that Cha Se Jung has often expressed how much he likes Toy and perhaps... he needs to stop listening to him for a while? Because I see too much of Yoo Hee Yeol in these songs. I've gotten that feeling from his previous albums, but this album just confirmed that Cha Se Jung's music is a bit too similar to Yoo Hee Yeol's music for me to fully appreciate it. It's not a bad thing, I love Yoo Hee Yeol/Toy with a burning passion, but at this rate, Epitone Project will always be the Toy-wannabe in my mind. And I feel like he is capable of more than that.

I know that he experimented a lot with this album because it certainly shows with the variety of instruments and the (slight variation in the) sound. I just hope that he continues experimenting and finds a sound that is uniquely his.