Posts Tagged TGUS

Review : T.G.U.S – Vol.1 – God of Harmony

June 10, 2008 at 4:21 pm · Filed under Music, Review ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

NAME : TGUS Vol.1 – God of Harmony

ARTIST : TGUS (which stands for The Guys Using Sound, which sounds really… weird, not to mention fobby)

RELEASE DATE : 10th June, 2008.

LANGUAGE : Korean

GENRE : Ballad

I must admit that I knew next to nothing about these guys before they released this album. Heck, I didn’t really know them even after they released this album. A friend of mine recommended it to me, and I was really surprised by their beautiful voices. This is one group I think we should all be watching out for.

This group is all male and has four members. The members – Hang Wan Hui, Park Sang Jun, Song Young Min and Lee Si Hyeon (credits to T.G.U.S. official thread @soompi for members names) were all part of unsuccessful groups, who later teamed up to form T.G.U.S. This group’s USP is vocal harmonization (smoothly melding voices together to produce a clear sound, mainly used in acapella), which I found to be a very pleasing aspect of this album.

They are a new group and have participated in the SBS Hope (Hwimang) Single with Jewelry, SS501, SNSD, Brown Eyed Girls, Super Junior and Lee Hyun (5tion). Besides this, I couldn’t find a lot of information about them, no matter how hard I searched.

TRACK LIST :

01 Intro
02 I Believe In (Title)
03 가슴이 시키는 대로
04 One Last Kiss
05 Feel So Good
06 너의 뒤에서
07 Tonight
08 말해
09 무지개
10 Player
11 눈을감아
12 말하지 못한…
13 Outro

Track by track

Track 1: (9/10) I don’t really care for intro tracks – let alone rate them, but this one really makes you get up and take notice of the guys! Really nice…

Track 2: (9/10) This is the title track, a nice R&B ballad. One of the best tracks on the album!

Track 3: (7.5/10) Ballad again, a very emotional song and their vocal talents really shine through on this one.

Track 4:(9/10) This son, for some strange reminds me of 90’s ballads (by popular boy-bands of that time (western, not Korean)). Anyway, I like it a lot. Recommended.

Track 5: (6/10) A faster song to break the monotony of ballads. It doesn’t really stand out to me though…

Track 6: (8/10) R&B ballad again. Nice…

Track 7: (9/10) This is where they capitalize on both individual as well as group strengths. Easily one of the best on the album.

Track 8:(6/10) Again a faster pace, a faster beat… Not that great though, I’m beginning to get the feeling that they should stick to ballads, but I don’t know… it doesn’t seem that they are bad at it, seems more like the song isn’t good enough…

Track 9: (8.5/10) I like this song. Actually, it reminds of some Westlife song but I can’t remember which. It features a female artist, but I don’t know who…

Track 10: (6.5/10) Faster paced, not that great – haven’t we heard that before?

Track 11: (8/10) R&B ballad, I’m relieved that they’re back to this. It’s really beautiful. Listen to it to see how well they’re voices go together.

Track 12 : (8/10) A really mellow track…

Track 13 : (?/10)Outro, disappointing after listening to the great intro track. It’s just a girl mumbling in Chinese, not what I expected…

VERDICT: These guys are really good. Overall, I would give them 7/10, which is great for a début album. I hope they do well because they seem to be genuinely talented. Here’s wishing them luck!

TRACKS TO WATCH OUT FOR : Tracks 1,2,4,7,9.

I couldn’t find the video for their title track, but here’s a video of them singing Thank You (originally by Boyz II Men). It’s really sweet, check it out!

I heard Sohn Ho Young stars in the video… Looking forward to it!

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Weekly Feature – Tying up Loose Ends – Korean Music – I

June 8, 2008 at 11:59 pm · Filed under Music, News, Tying up Loose Ends! ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

First week of June – a lot of interesting developments took place this week, eg. news about Alex’s, Lee Jung’s and Sung Si Kyung’s album releases, not to mention some new finds on my part, and of course the Dream concert.

For the uninitiated, the Dream concert is an annual Korean event when the industry (or at least half of it – the famous ones) gather in honour of the cause against music piracy. This year’s event saw stars like Epik High, SS501, Super Junior, MC Mong, DBSK, Maya, Jewelry, Typhoon, AST’ 1, SHINee, Peter, SNSD, Buga Kingz , Wonder Girls, Mighty Mouth and Choo Seung Hoon. That makes it the largest annual live concert in Korea. I couldn’t catch it, as always, though I had a good time reading about it on Popseoul (the comments are the most interesting bit – where else do you get to see motley fans of motley idol groups trade words like fire tipped arrows in a Battle Royale). Anyway, click here to read Popseoul’s coverage (And while you’re there, do have a look at the ridiculous picture of Seo In-Young posted there, it’s hilarious! (Not meaning to offend any Jewelry fans))

Anyway, the above picture is of Epik High arriving at the Dream Concert, 2008.

I came across a LOT of new music – some great and for some, terrible would be an understatement. And to imagine the irony, when I was looking through the music I had accumulated through the week, I found some very well known artists having the worst songs, and some – virtually unknown, yet having the best music there was (I know that had a LOT of grammatical errors, but I hope you understood the point I’m inarticulately trying get get across…). TGUS, Trans Fixion, Soulzean, MK, Orifeel…ing, Nell (for releasing 1분만 닥쳐줄래요!) pleasantly surprised me. And the only one I knew well was Nell, I had a faint idea about Orifeel…ing and TGUS, but besides that, I hadn’t even heard of these wonderful artists. I also mildly enjoyed F.T Island’s Japanese debut album, and Big Bang’s With U Mini Album.

On the other hand, the downers for me this week were SuJu-H’s Cooking? Cooking! (Not that I was expecting much, but I just wanted to be pleasantly surprised, despite the skepticism)… just too happy (with an exclamation mark for added emphasis) for me, it was too upbeat/candy-coated/sugary/saccharine, unfortunately. The Wonder Girls’ So hot single was not great either, though I must admit the title song is catchy (if a little narcissistic). So except the title song, I wouldn’t really recommend any other song on the single. However, at this point I must mention that the rap version (MV version) of Tell Me sounds like a big improvement over the original, in fact my favourite part of Tell Me is YooBin’s rap. Don’t really like the abundance of leopard print though…

My picks this week (NOT in any particular order):

1. Epik High – One (Band Ver.)

2. Nell – 멀어지다

3. T (Yoon MiRae) – Baby Bye Bye (From Rhapsody Part Two Digital Single with Drunken Tiger)

4. Trans Fixion – Radio (Feat. Xeno) (still don’t know where to get the rest of this, but I’m looking)

5. Soulzean -이번 한번만 (feat. Riaa)

6. MK – 사랑이라서 (feat.Roserael)

7. TGUS – I Believe In

8. F.T Island – Soyogi

9. Orifeel…ing – 슬픈 영혼 (By Kai, 장치열, 나리)

10. Orifeel…ing – 너무 늦어서 (By MK, 김미란)

I’m so gonna buy Orifeel…ing’s album, but I’d be damned if I find it on Yesasia… Actually I can’t find it anywhere…

Anyway, have a great week ahead, everyone!

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