MUSE

Jimin returns with his sophomore solo album, MUSE, released while the BTS vocalist and dancer was in mandatory military service. The seven-track check-in is more lighthearted and lyrical than Jimin’s debut. Where FACE was stormy and cathartic, an intentional effort to accept and express the darker feelings evoked by the pandemic, superstardom, and life in general, MUSE hews more closely to a specific, familiar theme: the search for a “good love, real love,” as Jimin calls it on “Rebirth (Intro),” and the inspiration it can bring. In lead single “Who,” an energetic, Jon Bellion-produced pop track that lets Jimin’s emotive vocals loose, the artist is on the lookout for love: “We never met but she’s all I see at night/Never met but she’s always on my mind/Wanna give her the world/And so much more/Who is my heart waiting for?” “Who” is the only MUSE track on which Jimin does not have a writing credit, though Ghstloop and Pdogg, two of Jimin’s frequent collaborators, do. Along with Evan, the four songwriters make up the Smeraldo Garden Marching Band, a fictional band named after a fictional flower from BTS lore. The album’s third track, a Sgt.