I knew that The Black
Skirts would be releasing Cake Love with
Junsu a few days before it came out,
and I anticipated it with caution. “This is the winter season after all, and
with a title like Cake Love, what’s
to stop it from being a shitty coffee-shop ballad?” I thought to myself. Now I
regret doubting it in the first place.
One of the showcases of this song is the beautiful, ethereal
instrumental. From the outset, we get a thick bed of synths, which seem to
spread forever before switching to the next chord. We’ve seen this before in
The Black Skirts’ music, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it many times again. This
sort of extended nature gives ample room for rest of our instrumental, which is
constantly in flux. A set of icy synth keys and (what sound like) some
distorted vocal samples start out Cake
Love, lending it a cold, detached atmosphere. From there on out, the
instrumental flourishes work in tandem with Junsu’s vocals to build a
paradoxically warm-yet-frigid tone; listening to it almost feels like standing in
the snow with three jackets on, but still feeling the cold tinge your cheeks
and fingertips. Elements are added, subtracted, traded in and out, all led on
by a tender, restrained vocal delivery, which manages to strike the balance
between distinguishing itself and fading sleepily into the instrumental.
Cake Love never
truly reaches a traditional climax, but by the time the listener has reached
the final chorus, they have been so lulled into its trance that it no longer
matters. In fact, a sudden build or showy high note would have felt out-of-place
and shoehorned in. The extended instrumental outro feels like no loss or waste
of time either, giving The Black Skirts’ production its opportunity to shine and
showing the song’s significant progression from start to finish.
Rating: 4.6 slightly-too-loud vocal samples out of 5 DBSK members
Note: The video posted here is the official short version, but I highly recommend you listen to the full version.
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