YEONJUN steps out solo with 'Ice Cream'

YEONJUN set the group aside for a moment and brought us a summer song under his own name.

In three lines

• TOMORROW X TOGETHER's YEONJUN has released his second solo mini-album, 'NO LABELS: PART 02'.
• The title track, 'Ice Cream', is funk rock — vintage drums with a bouncy bass and a guitar riff layered on top.
• The solo debut that unfolded across two parts wraps up here. Standing on his own, YEONJUN's color comes through more clearly than before.

Let's start with the song itself.

The face he draws outside the team

This mini-album is the second, following 'NO LABELS: PART 01'. Splitting the series into two parts is what stands out. The YEONJUN we knew inside the group and the YEONJUN standing alone in front of a single mic — he's been moving slowly between the two across both albums. PART 02 leans toward closing that story. The grain of a voice that's hard to catch when several people are mixed together stands out all the more once he's on his own.

The summer you hear 'before it melts'

'Ice Cream' lives up to its name. It's light and cool. Over vintage drums the bass bounces, a guitar riff settles in, and before you know it your shoulders move before your head does. The lyrics liken a relationship to ice cream — too hot and it melts, eat it too fast and your head aches. The song rolls that metaphor along with a wink. A song that eases off like this tends to linger longer in summer than one that pushes hard.

Discovery note

Turn the volume up in the evening, when the sun has dipped a little lower than midday. Put YEONJUN-in-the-group and YEONJUN-on-his-own side by side, and you might find yourself thinking — the same voice really can sound this different.