Initially formed as an assignment for drummer Kim Geon-jay’s college media art class, Silica Gel would rise to become one of the most popular indie-rock bands in South Korea, winning Artist of the Year, a grand prize previously awarded to BTS and PSY, at the 2024 Korean Music Awards. On their third studio album, Ballad of You, vocalist and keyboardist Kim Han-joo, drummer Kim Geon-jay, guitarist and vocalist Kim “Chunchu” Min-su, and bassist Choi Woong-hee continue to remind listeners how much fun musical experimentation can be. Silica Gel builds the soundscapes of their studio albums, which have included 2016’s self-titled debut and 2023’s POWER ANDRE 99, around intricate intellectual concepts. On Ballad of You, the band developed their own concept of “spiral shedding” by riffing off of the explorations of Buddhist reincarnation found in Osamu Tezuka’s unfinished Phoenix manga series. On the 12-track album, this can take the form of the screech of a guitar on strutting, post-punk homage “Postpink” or a three-minute, mid-album meditation of organ chords cheekily titled “You Just Wanna Have Fun.” Silica Gel explores the depth and direction of reincarnation in the bounding rhythm of love-themed lead single “Molecular Gastronomy” (“Yes, I love you/Carrying on in new life”) and in the urgent blend of jazz and electronica of 72-second instrumental “Crybaby.” The band is enthusiastically eclectic in their inspiration-finding, crafting a meandering, occasionally psychedelic rock track around “Manphasickzuck,” a bamboo flute from Unified Silla Dynasty legend, without breaking theme. “I was you before/And you was me before,” Kim Han-joo sings in English for the song’s start, welcoming listeners deeper into Silica Gel’s sonic playground.