My fears only grew when I heard the first few notes of "One Of These Nights" — I prepared myself for four minutes of painfully-slow piano melodies and maudlin warbling "for the fans" ballads, the kind of limp, worthless drivel that plagues almost every single boy group album. But then something incredible happened: "One Of These Nights" turned out to be good. Not just good, but great; the song is a dreamy ballad with lyrics that parallel the story of Chilseok, and it's these lyrical allusions that really make the track shine:
"Past the milky way, in a faraway place,
I'm going through our white memories.
It's alright if it's just a dream,
Let's meet again, one of these nights"
The sombre lyrics, when coupled with the sweet voices of the Red Velvet members, create a bittersweet vibe that contrasts greatly with the giddy sugar-rush we've seen from their previous singles, and I really do think it succeeds in showing us Red Velvet's conceptual versatility.
Despite how much I enjoy "One Of These Nights" I can certainly understand why it hasn't been as well-received as "Dumb Dumb" — no international K-pop fan became interested in the genre thanks to its ballads, and the way that K-pop trainees are trained vocally does not teach them how to effectively use their own musicality to convey emotion in tracks. Fortunately The Velvet doesn't crawl along from start to finish: "Cool Hot Sweet Love" gives us more of what we have previously seen in "Be Natural" and "Automatic" and builds on both tracks with a much more dynamic chorus and instrumentation; the icy synths in the verses are layered and added to in the chorus to inject warmth and give the song lift, and this shift in "temperature" makes the contrast between the verses and chorus really stand out.
Similar shifts in tone are used in the more relaxed "Light Me Up", as the groove is stripped right down at the beginning of the chorus and the second pre-chorus is repeated just as Wendy's "I'm in love" seemingly transitions into it; it's as if the girls, in their giddy love-drunk excitement, keep tripping over themselves as they desperately call for the attention of the boy they're infatuated with. There's actually a lot of thought put into these tracks and it's very reassuring to see that SM are determined to make Red Velvet's dual-image more than just a debut gimmick.
However, after track three The Velvet's main weakness becomes clear: it just cannot offer the same range of sounds that The Red did, and it's difficult to overlook this when after the two R&B tracks the lifeless "First Time" floats by listlessly, boosting the total length of the mini-album by four minutes but not even bothering to hold the listener's interest for even one of those 242 seconds. "Rose Scent Breeze" thankfully does at least try, adding more instruments and layers as the song progresses, but it seems too hesitant to do much else, and when it lacks the contextual advantage that "One Of These Nights" has it's hard to view it as anything more than just pleasant. Ultimately most of the tracks work, but nothing quite clicks in the way that tracks from The Red did.
It's clear that their "Velvet" side needs a fair amount of work for Red Velvet's core concept to really succeed, however The Velvet is still a strong mini-album that thankfully shows consistency and musical potential, which Red Velvet as a whole seem to have more of than almost every other rookie group.
Score: 7/10 [Good]
Highlights: "One Of These Nights", "Cool Hot Sweet Love"
Similar shifts in tone are used in the more relaxed "Light Me Up", as the groove is stripped right down at the beginning of the chorus and the second pre-chorus is repeated just as Wendy's "I'm in love" seemingly transitions into it; it's as if the girls, in their giddy love-drunk excitement, keep tripping over themselves as they desperately call for the attention of the boy they're infatuated with. There's actually a lot of thought put into these tracks and it's very reassuring to see that SM are determined to make Red Velvet's dual-image more than just a debut gimmick.
However, after track three The Velvet's main weakness becomes clear: it just cannot offer the same range of sounds that The Red did, and it's difficult to overlook this when after the two R&B tracks the lifeless "First Time" floats by listlessly, boosting the total length of the mini-album by four minutes but not even bothering to hold the listener's interest for even one of those 242 seconds. "Rose Scent Breeze" thankfully does at least try, adding more instruments and layers as the song progresses, but it seems too hesitant to do much else, and when it lacks the contextual advantage that "One Of These Nights" has it's hard to view it as anything more than just pleasant. Ultimately most of the tracks work, but nothing quite clicks in the way that tracks from The Red did.
Score: 7/10 [Good]
Highlights: "One Of These Nights", "Cool Hot Sweet Love"
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