Release Date: March 13, 2019
Track Listing
- Sleepless
- In Seoul feat. Sungwoo Jung A
- Lovedrunk feat. Crush
- Eternal Sunshine
- No Different feat. Yuna
- Rain Again Tomorrow
- Lullaby for a Cat
Review
Two years after dropping We’ve Done Something Wonderful Epik High return with their independently released mini-album sleepless in________.
It is an album that starts by asking many questions through the melancholy opening track Sleepless.
“Do you have trouble sleeping?”
“Do you have nightmares?”
“Are you heartbroken?”
“Do you feel down? Depressed, hopeless?”
“Do you miss someone?”
“Do you find that things you once enjoyed no longer interest you?”
Various themes surrounding these questions are explored in the songs that follow.
Topics covered on this album include (but are not limited to) depression, loneliness and the bitterness of heartbreak (Lovedrunk). Dealing with anxieties of life (Eternal Sunshine) and the thoughts of an insomniac. (Rain Again Tomorrow)
All of that is some fairly deep content to absorb. Rather than hammering the listener over the head about such heavy subject matter Epik High instead deftly maneuver through each track to get their point across. Everything is presented in an easily accessible package thanks to slickly produced beats and guest appearances from Sungwoo Jung A, Crush, Suga (BTS) and Malaysian soul-pop artist Yuna.
Introspective is probably the best way to describe the overall mood of sleepless in________. Each track feels like it will resonate in some manner to everyone. If you can’t relate to anything that Epik High are speaking about on this mini-album you probably have a black heart and are dead inside.
Your enjoyment level of sleepless in________ will probably come down to how you like your Epik High served to you. Do you prefer their Hip-Hop oriented flavours or do you like when they lean more towards the pop side of life? On this mini-album it sounds like they are gravitating towards the latter since most of the songs are mellow and lack the edginess of the group in full on Hip-Hop mode.
Even with the shift to a pop oriented sound sleepless in________ is a great album that contains enough to please both the hardcore and casual fans of Epik High.
