Album Review: “Zero for conduct” deserves 10 out of 10

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Ana Amador in Entertainment

Ana Amador

Chronicle Reporter

Bastarz is a south-Korean sub-unit group of the Korean hip-hop group Block B the group consists of B-Bomb (Lee Minhyuk), P.O (Pyo Jihoon), and U-Kwon (Kim Yukwon).

B-Bomb knows how to play the piano, P.O is well known for his deep and raspy voice, and U-Kwon knows how to play the electric guitar but what ties them together in this album is the hip-hop/groovy vibe that highlights the whole album. This mini-album, “Zero for Conduct,” is their first release  as a 3-member group.

The album starts with their title song “Zero for Conduct,” a strong fast-paced beat whose sound might remind you of something you’d hear from an EDM album. This song was produced by Block B’s group leader Zico though he doesn’t rap in it. The song is addicting and doesn’t get as annoying as you’d think it would even after a few listens. The song definitely has a party, break-the-rules type of feel.

Their second song on the album is titled Charlie Chaplin, the lyrics talk about the singers abilities to easily acquire girls and showcases their confidence with relationships. Knowing the general hip-hop genre it’s not surprising that most of these songs aren’t about the meaning of the lyrics but the actual music and the different experimenting they do with genres. This song specifically has a much calmer feel than the first one but can also be called funk-pop. The highlight of this song was when P.O’s sweet, husky rapping comes in and sets the mood for the rest of the song.

Track number 3, “Thief,” is also about “stealing girl’s hearts” and starts out with the sweet high-toned voices of B-Bomb and U-Kwon. Although controversy surrounds the song for it’s sexual lyrics, which people believe appeal to rape culture the song still has a good vibe, at least as long as you don’t read a translation of the lyrics.

The fourth song was made to melt hearts with the title “nobody but you,” the song starts out with P.O’s voice singing in Spanish what translates to “my love, there’s something i want to tell you, listen to me well” and then goes into the slow-paced sensual composition that doesn’t show up anywhere else in the album; the song consists of high falsettos which are hit nicely by both vocals.

With the 6th song being just the instrumental version of the title song, track number 5 is really the last song in the album. This song is something you wouldn’t be surprised to hear on an american radio station, the chorus resembling the lazy style of rapping a lot of people are using in their raps as of right now. The song features Korean rapper incredibles who blends well with P.O.

Though this album is in Korean with swear word you wouldn’t even understand, it is rated in south Korea as 19+ and wear the parental advisory label here in the U.S.

The album does a good job of introducing this new sub-unit as a young energetic trio, who’s just having fun making music and not necessarily caring about meaning. Though meaning lacks feeling does not the songs do everything from pump hip-hop fans up to mellowing them down with their slow-paced funk/pop experimentation songs. If you’re a fan of hip-hop then this album is for you, especially tracks 1 and 5. Overall the album gets eight gold chains out of ten for its feel-good vibe.

Go here to listen to it and here for a live performance of their title song, “Zero for Conduct.”