Stray Kids are back after the success of previous release ‘God’s Menu‘, with a repackage of their previous album ‘GO LIVE’. New album ‘IN LIFE (IN生)’ removes the intro track, two anime tracks and the two mixtape songs from ‘GO LIVE’ and adds a whopping eight new tracks to the album, resulting in a 17 track album – SORRY?! Impressive to say the least. The title track to this enormous album is ‘Back Door’, which has been released on member Jisung’s 20th birthday (happy birthday little one).
Oh my goodness – my boys are back. I’m not out here saying I haven’t liked their recent releases, because I have liked everything they have released, but I was starting to feel a little like everything was sounding like it was moving in the same direction. ‘Back Door’ took me by complete surprise, bringing back so much of the musicality of earlier Stray Kids tracks that I fell in love with and blending in with their newer industrial hip-hop sound to create this eclectic blend of genres. The mashup is totally different to anything I’ve heard in KPop in recent times and just feels fresh and exciting. This track is a real credit to subunit 3RACHA and their writing, composition and arranging skills, since the three of them (Bang Chan. Changbin and Jisung) almost did this all themselves.
‘Back Door’ builds in a sound we haven’t heard from Stray Kids before, and that’s the funky jazz pop element, which is highlighted through the prominent bass guitar featuring throughout the track. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Stray Kids song without the EDM and hip-hop influence which come in full force through the chorus, drawing a stark contrast from the verses and giving space for the performance element to shine through in the form of sharp and powerful choreography. Personally, I love that the vocal presence seems to be quite strong on this track, with Seungmin, Bang Chan and Jeongin’s vocals coming through clearly in the down moments of the song and offsetting the rap sequences.
The arrangement of the track is really smart, monopolising on intentional contrasts of the jazz funk and dance elements, whilst forcing the rap of the verses into a more melodic structure, allowing the full Stray Kids rap energy to be unleashed in the chorus. It is also really clever that the song builds up the EDM sound through the final parts of the song, crescendoing in this festival feeling (it feels like a rave in a field), but then immediately drops back to the jazz bass, grounding the sound back into reality – the constantly changing dynamics keep listeners on their toes. Finally, let’s not forget to mention the addition of the knock sound effect, which I feel like is going to be iconic in itself, as well as the fact that the classic one liners are present – Felix: “Hey, you wanna come in?” – yes, I heard you were having a birthday party, yes I do want to come in.
The new additions to the album do feature some trap heavy tracks synonymous of their new sound, but also bring in some of the more vocal driven melodies that they grew their repertoire from, harking back to their origins a little more. For me personally, it’s just so comforting to hear. I love their bolshy hip-hop sound too, since it plays to the strength of their rap team (I love), but Stray Kids are a group that have a lot of range in their individual skills and abilities and, as such, can cover a variety of concepts and genres to an outstanding standard, so I always love hearing them play around with different styles on their album tracks.
Favourite track from the latest additions to the album: Any (there’s a little bit too much autotune and processing in this track but I can’t deny the melody)
TMI: It’s exactly 2 years since the day I decided I was going to allow myself to fall hard for Stray Kids, and also 2 years since the day I first saw them live (Felix’s birthday 2018 – HBD Felix!), so it is almost symbolic to me that I’m re-strengthening my love for their music on this particular day (hahah!)
TMI2: Every time I mention Jisung, I have to stop myself from going all ‘big sister proud’ on this one.
Jei's Kulture Notes 
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