By Michael Luce

I love hearing about up-and-coming groups that are doing cool stuff with music, so when I heard about the ‘supergroup’ LUCY, I was immediately intrigued. The group formed as part of the talent competition show Superband in 2019 and have been content doing their own thing for the last few years. Make no mistake though, these guys aren’t just making music for a small corner of the music world. Their music has been used in multiple K-dramas, with several of these songs climbing their way up the Korean pop music charts. LUCY is really good, and it’s just a matter of time before they explode into true mainstream awareness.

LUCY sound a bit like fellow Korean rockers THORNAPPLE, but if they tried to follow in the footsteps of early BOL4 or IU. There’s a lot of passionate and earnest rock stylings here, but with mainstream pop sensibilities. I’ve seen a few sources saying this style of ‘supergroup’ is the anticipated sound for fifth generation K-pop, and after listening to their newest EP, Fever, I can see why.

The first five seconds of “Hot!” lull the listener into a false sense of comfort and calmness before the next line fires a harpoon into your attention and never lets it go. I let out an audible “oh wow!” the first time I heard this track because there is so much going on here, and it all works so well. Incorporating everything from hyperpop to anthem rock, this song is about as big as you can get without exploding. The peak comes about halfway through, as the vocals give out and an arpeggio of violin glistens and accelerates the track into multiple consecutive key changes.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: LUCY’s frontman plays the violin. I can only speak for myself here, but I’ve honestly never been too impressed with solo violin in pop or rock music. Sure, bands from Coldplay to BLACKPINK have used orchestras to great effect, but seeing a single stringed instrument on the roster often causes me to raise my guard against potential cringe. Contrary to the norm, LUCY use the instrument like a weapon, cutting through their songs and screaming at the front of the mix instead of sitting back passively providing backup harmonies. This presence elevates the violin from unwanted kid brother to epic rock star.

The second track “Haze” is a bit more standard ballad faire, but instead of emotional subtlety and intimacy, LUCY substitutes grandeur and expression; the emotions are the same, but the scale is completely different. Journeying through the different sections of “Haze” makes it feel like a seven-to-ten-minute track instead of a sub-five-minute one. (I swear, even though this release is only four tracks long, it carries the emotional weight of seven.)

I love the presence with which the final track “So What” opens with. There is a massive amount of confidence in those riffs, like these guys know they are the protagonists of their own story. The track has the most noticeable trade-offs for vocal duty, and it helps unify the quartet into one solid mass of sound. Like “Haze,” the track blasts through shade after shade, making it feel even bigger.

It’s hard to find fault with Fever, though I do wish the production had the same depth as the writing and arrangement. The songs pack a punch, but said punches lack any sort of layering or depth of sound. The EP is mixed like pop, and I wish it had been mixed like rock. It’s a subtle difference, but I think it would make the highs feel so much grander.

Overall, what stands out to me about LUCY on Fever is they demonstrate the capability to throw everything but the kitchen sink into this stone-bowl bibimbap of an EP, but they hold themselves back from doing so. The songs are super-loaded, sure, but they aren’t overloaded. Restraint is always a concern with a group that can do so much, and while LUCY flirts with crossing the line, they never do.