PHANTOM – Burning

Finally! The band whose feature album I have been waiting for.

Since I heard 19 Song (청소년이 들으면 안되는 사랑노래) [1], I have been very intrigued by Korean trio PHANTOM. Then they came out with Hole in your Face (얼굴 뚫어지겠다) [2] and I was a goner.

To me, Hole in your Face was the best Korean song of 2011. Sure, it had some stiff competition with other songs — Turn Off the TV (TV를 껐네) [3] by LeeSsang and Beautiful Moon [4] by 10cm come to mind — but Hole in your Face was without a doubt the best. There was something about the lyrics, the melody and the haunting music video that made the entire song a very heartfelt experience. I listen to that song everyday and I have yet to tire from it. It comes on and all you can do is sing along to it — it is that powerful.

So PHANTOM teased us with that song and promised more, so it was with great pleasure to those new-found fans that they dropped their first single, titled Burning (버닝), from their upcoming mini-album Phantom City.

The song is decent and it really grows on you. I really dig it and I can see myself listening to it a lot. I am little worried that PHANTOM might have set the bar too high with Hole in your Face, but I guess time will tell!

For now I will be extremely giddy that PHANTOM is around to give the Korean music scene some much needed quality.