The harshest critic of Parannoul’s music happens to be the person who makes it. Just read the quotes the anonymous Seoul artist posts to their Bandcamp page: “I think these are some kind of magic, that will shine bright for a while and then lights out, like nothing happened”; “He believes he is talented…his singing skills are fucking awful, and is below average in height and appearance and everything.” Even as they’ve emerged as a figurehead of South Korean indie rock and a leading light in an exploding online shoegaze scene, Parannoul are imagining backlash. Though 2023’s After the Magic upgraded their blown-out, lower-than-lo-fi digital shoegaze with stunning results, Sky Hundred trades that deep blue for scorching red—a loud-as-fuck rock record that would be called “back to basics” if Parannoul had ever once sounded like a typical rock band.

In contrast to its lush and collaborative predecessor, Sky Hundred is credited entirely to Parannoul. Guitars strum slightly out of time, drums tumble in imperfect rhythms, and on “암​전​고​백 (Lights Off Repentance),” Parannoul play at approximately twice their typical tempo, working up a folk-punk froth that resembles In the Aeroplane Over the Sea way more than Loveless. Is Parannoul working on MIDI with next-generation humanizer settings or were they able to play all of these analog instruments in isolation? Not that Sky Hundred is exactly organic; the “piano” motif on “시계 (Backwards)” is reminiscent of a Skype ringtone. But whereas previous Parannoul songs added or removed layers, Sky Hundred works in dynamics. The opening “주​마​등 (A Lot Can Happen)” breathlessly tries to keep up as the tempo shifts to a breakneck IDM beat. Even if the 14-minute centerpiece “Evoke Me” was spliced together in Pro Tools, the raw elements sound culled from hours of real-time jamming.

For all of its tweaks, Sky Hundred is immediately “Parannoul music,” its constituent influences welded together by volume. Shoegaze still has the best claim to an album that uses this much guitar distortion, though in contrast to contemporary gossamer and gauze, Sky Hundred is defined by its presence; the guitars punch rather than soothe and the melodies have the definition of a soda jingle. Though the occasional glimmers of twinkling MIDI guitar that situated To See the Next Part of the Dream in emo’s fifth wave are gone, the spirit of the genre remains in Parannoul’s lyrics, which express countless variations on digital sentimentalism. “Even after everything, I want to believe the feeling lasts forever” (“주​마​등 [A Lot Can Happen]”) or “In the beautiful world I dreamt of, there is no story of me” (“환상 [Fantasy]”) would be the most potent distillation of Parannoul’s POV if it weren’t for the chorus of the aching “황​금​빛 강 (Gold River)”: “I remember memories of memories.”

Sky Hundred earns the superlatives one might expect from a “back to basics” album: It’s Parannoul’s most sonically consistent work, and also their shortest. But Parannoul seems aware of the fatigue that sets in with this mode, even at a relatively trim 52 minutes. It’s perfectly understandable to have a one-minute field recording between “Evoke Me” and the equally seismic “시계 (Backwards),” but putting another one between “시계 (Backwards)” and the closing “환상 (Fantasy)” shrinks Side B. The interludes feel less like scene-setting than time-killing, the equivalent of a live band playing ambient drone in the background while the guitarists retune.

In fact, Sky Hundred feels less like the follow-up to After the Magic than to the subsequent live album After the Night. Most anonymous artists don’t play live and even fewer release their debut live performance as an album. Parannoul might end up getting unmasked by his legion of fans or many collaborators, but the musician has already started to challenge their reputation as an isolated bedroom act. If their previous two releases sounded like Parannoul was respectively confined to a laptop and a snow globe, Sky Hundred tries to burst through the ceiling while keeping the fourth wall intact.