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In another world, instead of being a member of BTS, Jin would front a pop-rock band, cushioning his vocals with guitar chugs and pounding drums. It’s the sound he’s favoured in all of his solo work so far, from his Coldplay-gifted debut solo single ‘The Astronaut’ to last year’s first solo album ‘Happy’. ‘Echo’, the follow-up to that latter record, continues carving out his place as a frontman, each track backed up by a band rather than digital layers of sound.
The solo projects BTS have released since 2022 have all been something of an exploration – what are each member’s individual artistic tastes and strengths, and how can they build on them away from the group? For Jin’s part, he’s used the time since he completed his military service last summer to dig deeper – not just find one niche of rock and stick to it, but adventure across its sonic spectrum.
Like ‘Happy’, ‘Echo’ reflects that. Across its seven tracks, it delivers everything from classic piano-led pop-rock to takes on alt-rock and country-rock. Not everything works – the sound of a horse neighing and a western saloon bar whistle at the start of ‘Rope It’ are far too on the nose and give the song a novelty feel right off the bat.
The pop-punk instrumental of ‘Loser’, too, feels by the numbers; a shiny, MOR pastiche of the angst that oozes out of the genre’s original sound. It lets down the snotty lyrics, that veer from almost mocking (“You love me, you miss me, you tell me I’m beautiful / Baby you need me, you don’t want to let me go”) to petulant (“Not a loser, loser / You’re a loser, loser,” featured vocalist IZ*ONE’s Yena sings) in a tale of a couple who can’t help but bicker.
Jin’s strength has always been the emotion his voice evokes, and that’s no different across ‘Echo’. On the glistening melancholy of all-English lead single ‘Don’t Say You Love Me’, he nails the pain and ambivalence of a relationship falling apart, while the people in it struggle to let go of each other. “Don’t tell me that you’re gonna miss me / Just tell me that you wanna kill me / Don’t say that you love me, ‘cause it hurts the most,” he sighs, acknowledging the sadness that comes with an amicable break-up. The stirring ballad ‘Background’ and the cinematic drama of ‘With The Clouds’ – one of several songs Jin co-wrote – also allow him to shine, his velvet tones combining perfectly with sweeping strings and glittering guitars.
‘Echo’ is an appropriate title for Jin’s second album. Following just six months after ‘Happy’, it’s not worlds apart from its predecessor but presents a slightly distorted, changed version of that record’s sound, like how an echo of a call reverberates off walls to create something familiar but new. He concentrates on polishing what he knows works for him – an important step for any artist in cementing their style. The results are varied, but this is just one frame of a much bigger picture of Jin’s solo career – one where he will undoubtedly continue to grow and prosper the more he leans into what suits him best.
Details
- Record label: Big Hit Music
- Release date: May 16, 2025
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