![]() ![]() They filled their days with practising but time took on a painful slowness and Donghun admits that between 2018’s “Take Me Higher” and 2019’s “Under Cover”, he struggled. The hardest time was when we didn’t know when our next album would come out, that was the only fear.”Ī.C.E’s main comebacks have consistently been nearly a year apart. Donghun has never experienced stress when “competing with other groups or other programs. K-Pop is a costly business with comeback expenses running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. “Above all,” he adds, “we want to show our daily lives, to talk about our offstage stories and natural sides.”Īnd while these are such advantages of a small label, the disadvantages can be intense. The first factor, Donghun says, is that “the company trusts us and just lets us make our contents.” The second is desire. So we didn’t worry.” This freedom of feeling is a vital part of the group’s DNA, from their busking days and the covers – whether it be 5SOS or Blackpink – they still release, to their vlogs and YouTube diaries in which they’re frequently chaotic, raw and unpretentious.Ī.C.E are the only group signed to their label, Beat Interactive, which has helped smooth a way for their autonomy, but this alone doesn’t quantify the carefree authenticity of A.C.E. “I was like, ‘Whatever, I don’t care’,” he grins, “because we were confident in our dancing and singing skills, and the only thing we’d talked about was if we show the world what we have, we’ll not regret it. To sass one of K-Pop’s founding fathers, the man who, for a short while, held their future in his hands, was wildly audacious.ĭonghun laughs at the memory. Main vocalist Donghun didn’t miss a beat, calmly pointing out YG’s own boy group, WINNER, had worn similar shorts for their own promotions, leaving the CEO speechless. During Donghun, Byeongkwan and Wow’s audition for Mix Nine, YG Entertainment’s CEO Yang Hyun-Suk made a snide remark about A.C.E’s eye-catching short shorts during performances of their debut single, 'Cactus'. And because of those factors I think a lot of people forget who they are or what they like.”Ĭompetition, and maintaining one’s identity in the thick of it, is nothing new to A.C.E who took part in the parallel-running survival shows Mix Nine and The Unit, designed to raise the profiles of lesser known groups at the time (Chan won a place in The Unit’s temporary group UNB and was absent from A.C.E’s 2018 promotions). “A lot of people press forward because of their dream or because they’re being pulled along by someone or even because of competition. He’s known for a physical, sometimes surreal, wit and elastic, spontaneous expressions but, equally, he takes his leader role seriously, dwelling on his replies. ![]() “There’s one message that we wanted to convey the most – don’t lose yourself no matter what happens,” says group leader, 26 year old Jun. “Whatever you do, do it your way, don’t blame anyone / Be your style, your color, be one of a kind” raps Wow on “Goblin (Favorite Boys)”, a towering, muscular slab of pop-rock. Byeongkwan considers their affinity for tales to be a natural, effective fit for their song’s messages and “the good thing is that everyone knows the stories so it was easy to tell the story in a modern way.” The video teaser – simply entitled 'Opening Video' – features dark fairy tale staples like spells, thorns, fruit and blood. The EP’s title riffs off the Chinese fable, ‘The Butterfly Dream’, its opener is entitled 'Golden Goose' after the Aesop tale, and the lead single – “Goblin (Favorite Boys)” – bases itself around the playful, golden bat-waving goblins in Korean mythology. ![]() The bittersweet irony isn’t just that there are more eyes on A.C.E than ever before, but that this is some of their finest work, from the exquisite teaser images shot in water tanks to live performances so uncompromising they deserved an audience present to leave breathless. There’s also an understandable frustration: due to Covid-19 restrictions, for the past five weeks A.C.E have been performing to TV crews in empty studios as they promote ‘HZJM: The Butterfly Phantasy’, their first record in eleven months, which is a substantial period in K-Pop. So finding ways to be with their fans, whether through writing album tracks dedicated to them, video call events or digital concerts, aren’t just sweet gestures or business acumen, they’re lifelines. ![]()
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