Group SEVENTEEN members Dokyeom and Seungkwan opened the new year with an even wider musical spectrum.
SEVENTEEN's Dokyeom and Seungkwan released the full mini 1st album "Soyagok (小夜曲)" and the music video for the title track "Blue" on various music platforms at 6 p.m. on the 12th.
Dokyeom and Seungkwan, known within SEVENTEEN as the group's "mevoz," releasing an official unit album carries special significance. It is their first full-fledged duet activity in about 10 years since SEVENTEEN's 2016 full-length album track "Say Yes."
Ten years is enough time for mountains and rivers to change. Over these years Dokyeom and Seungkwan's voices have grown deeper and their spectrum has broadened. The agency's confident explanation that "Dokyeom's cool, powerful tone and Seungkwan's delicate, husky vocals blend to complete the best harmony" was more than enough to signal the revival of the traditional K-pop vocal duo that has been gradually disappearing.
"Soyagok" means "a love song sung at night," and it is the universal story of love sleeping in everyone's memory. Without exaggerating or hiding past love, and without portraying dramatic or grand events, "Soyagok" candidly and precisely expresses emotions layered in everyday life, becoming a work anyone can relate to and empathize with.
The title track "Blue" expresses "love with different strides" through Dokyeom and Seungkwan's perfect harmony. Their compelling voices melt into a poignant melody, completing the essence of a winter ballad people will return to around this time each year. The complex emotions that arise when the ways, speeds and depths of feeling and expressing love are misaligned are depicted in poetic lyrics.
The unusually 7-minute-20-second music video contains various scenes such as when what is still dazzling to me begins to dim for you, when unanswered silence swallows us, and when you no longer reach the fingertips that desperately stretch out. Actors Lee Yumi and Noh Sang Hyun appear, portraying gradually drifting lovers with deep performances that enhance immersion.
"Soyagok," created through Dokyeom and Seungkwan's emotional storytelling, consists of six tracks structured along the trajectory of feelings, from the misalignment of monotony and passing through breakup to the point where lovers finally take the steps they had stopped taking.
Included are the retro pop track "Rockstar," which expresses gratitude to those who fill ordinary days; the ethereal-sounding ballad "Dream Serenade," which sings the period at the end of mature love; the R&B-based "Guilty Pleasure"; "Silence," capturing the emptiness after a breakup; and "Prelude of love," announcing an excitement-filled beginning. Dokyeom and Seungkwan not only participated in writing and composing their respective solo songs but also are credited as co-lyricists on the final track "Prelude of love," demonstrating their musical capabilities.
SEVENTEEN's Dokyeom and Seungkwan's mini 1st album "Soyagok" is available on various online music platforms.
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