iM are back as Happy Face, and bringing hybrid rock rap to the scene.
Previously part of the trio known as iM, Pilkang and Big Tone debuted as the duo Happy Face in April 2009 with the mini-album Be Happy.
Be Happy begins with a short little intro track that leads into Boyeo, the promoted track from this mini-album. Boyeo is a hybrid style of rock and rap, and will immediately bring Linkin Park to the mind of anyone who's ever heard the group. Although easily described as being a style similar to Linkin Park's, Boyeo lacks any really heavy rock, and some more powerful rapping would definitely have not gone astray. Pilkang and Big Tone are both solid rappers, but their singing leans towards the more nasally side of things, a little similar in sound to that of Korea's rock idol Seo Taiji. Depending on the listener's preference it may either make or break the song - but it is undeniably a welcome and refreshing break from the euro-beat dance and pop songs that have been saturating the music scene in recent months.
But the hybrid rock rap ends with Boyeo, and anyone who was hoping for the rest of the mini-album to follow along in the style of Boyeo will be sorely disappointed. Break Up is a mid-tempo, soft rock ballad, that while having a strong and often soaring melody, is let down by the vocals that make it, for the most part, unremarkable and easily forgotten.
The fourth track, Jalka, features rapper Nassun. A laid back R&B ballad, Jalka takes the mini-album even further away from the hybrid rock rap tone that Boyeo set, and is as unremarkable as the track preceding it.
Be My 1004 Part. II finishes the album off on a slightly faster R&B pop note, with a 'part 2' to Be My 1004, which was previously released in 2007, when Happy Face were a trio under the name of iM.
Overall, the mini-album was standard fare but not all that bad, but it is hard to look at the last three tracks in a favourable light if you heard Boyeo and expected the rest of the mini-album to be in the same style. Boyeo shows that the hybrid style suits Happy Face extremely well, a fact that was also demonstrated in L.E.O's second album Black Belt, where Happy Face teamed up with Baechigi to deliver the hard hitting rock rap 1 Day. It's hard to see why they didn't try to include at least another rock rap track on Be Happy, which would have made the switch back to R&B for the rest of the mini-album a little easier to forgive.
