Best New Music: October 2025 (Part 2)

A ranking and review of the best new releases from Korean, Japanese, and Chinese artists!

View the Substack version of this piece here!

Check out part one here!

#10: &TEAM, Back to Life
Flirty pop songs and rock-rooted hype songs alike show off vocal and narrative range, and this era’s visuals bring dark and stylish drama. A party atmosphere is frequently juxtaposed with a more serious one, and the related Webtoon story, in which the members play werewolves, gives the juxtapositions a purpose beyond turning heads. The tie-in gives new meanings to songs about fearing being too dissimilar to a crush to be compatible and to stay together (“Heartbreak Time Machine” and “MISMATCH”), feeling like one is “of two minds” (“Who am I”), and feeling reinvigorated at nighttime (“Lunatic” and “Rush”)!

&TEAM’s videos have contrasts to match the lyrical ones. The “ROAR ver.” teaser clip takes place in the woods at night, where sparkling lights appear in the forms of glittery makeup and accessories. In the “Back to Life” video, people in a crowd surge towards each other as if ready to fight, but then they crowd-surf, splash water on each other, and jump around happily! Moments of serenity come with caveats of their own, like when angel wings start to melt in the “GAZE ver.” teaser clip, and when the members lie in front of blue skies that are just a backdrop; they are stuck in a glass display case. Other key tonal pivots: a flying dove being followed by the sight of flying debris in a storm, and a human’s monster transformation being reversed after reaching out for a human hand.

Lightness and darkness are not far from each other in the “Lunatic” video, either. They literally shine, wearing head-to-toe silver on the red carpet and at a press conference, but dance sequences take place in a dark cave.

With or without considering the werewolf lore, Back to Life is eye and ear candy that conveys more than first meets the ears and eyes!

#9: Rainie Yang, Only in Echoes
Rainie Yang proves to be a seasoned performer, making the true art form that is using one’s singing voice efficiently seem easy. The best songs are the pop pivots, particularly “Yes, but?,” which keeps its vocal and instrumental intonation changes on parallel paths. On the other hand, the album’s many ballads offer words of wisdom deserving of their slow, deliberate pacing. Whether a ballad is more rooted in strings, piano, or guitars, she makes it a useful template; when her tone sounds purposefully restrained, it lets the heavy subject matter hold a more prominent presence. When she addresses how tempting it can be to lie or get into other bad habits, how the loudest presences are not necessarily those of the most courageous people in the room, and why it is actually a mistake to seek entirely clear answers, listeners can truly hear her. Additionally, her times spent singing with delicacy and caution do not betray a core of steadfast strength, like the kind she sings about people having when they address “elephants in the room” (aka “The Elephant We See”). 

One more piece of evidence of Rainie Yang being an effective messenger is the new and improved version of “Ambiguous,” which keeps the melody of the original but now has her production credit and matured worldview. 

#8: BOYNEXTDOOR, The Action
BOYNEXTDOOR’s meta premise has multiplied! In “[The Action] Trailer Film: Submission Deadline,” the members follow an acclaimed director’s scavenger hunt instructions to locate his hidden movie script. They find it in a house that has been abandoned, the rumor being that the director has fled so that it can be inhabited by its “rightful owners.” In “Kick Off for [The Action],” one of the members throws a dart at a map to decide where their next adventure will be, and when it lands on Chicago, they decide to make a splash at a Chicago film festival - never mind the fact they have not yet made a movie, let alone a movie getting festival buzz! Other “Concept Films” double as teaser trailers for each BOYNEXTDOOR member’s own movie. But the one meant to stick in viewers’ minds the most stars all of them and is simply called THE ACTION. A billboard for THE ACTION looks unfinished; it is merely black text on an empty background. The prime real estate this billboard has: by a gas station in the desert! 

In all of the above videos, BOYNEXTDOOR are in such a rush to the finish line when it comes to chasing their dreams that they leap over many steps, yet they somehow stick the landing. They don’t question how they can know for sure they are the “rightful owners” of the famous director’s house of brilliant ideas. They don’t wonder how they can win at a film festival when no one knows their names yet. They don’t worry about their movie ad campaign flopping because it is bland and set up in the middle of nowhere. They don’t even think about how to physically get to their promotional activities; their “car” is a taxi cab they have presumably “borrowed”!

The songs on The Action also treat BOYNEXTDOOR’s A-list status as unquestionable. They brag about their rise-and-grind mindset paying off in “Live In Paris,” and they tout their ticket sales and acting abilities in “Hollywood Action.” The more vulnerable songs also apply acting terminology to distance themselves from fault or responsibility. They admit they might not take a hint easily in “JAM!” (“Reading the room? Nah, boy’s out the door”), reveal some of their bravado is feigned in “Bathroom” (“Even if I talk rough, forgive me”), and use a script-related pun to explain why a breakup is necessary because a “performance” has become too exhausting (“I memorized lines over and over / Just trying to make you smile once”).

BOYNEXTDOOR truly fake it until they make it, eventually proving that their confidence hasn’t been unearned after all!

#7: TEMPEST, As I am
Besides the fascinating music video, this comeback impresses for its vulnerability and variety of strengths. “CHILL” has the feel of a spontaneous jam session among people with instant chemistry, and “Silly Kid” and “How deep is your love?” elaborate effectively on strong emotional states. But the best song is “nocturnal,” which has such distinct components that it is like three songs in one. That being said, the “Strongest Storytelling” honor belongs to “In The Dark,” and below is just one of countless possible interpretations of its music video. 

The main characters besides TEMPEST are a strange woman and her husband, presumably headmasters of an orphanage or a military school. The couple are partners in crime, running the institution with an iron fist - at least, that’s how it appears to TEMPEST. The members always look on the verge of either tears or a full nervous breakdown, terrified of what will happen if they disobey. The woman relishes more than her husband in watching them sweat and suffer. She grins and claps from her lounge chair when they do outdoor manual labor, and her enthusiasm goes up ten notches once it starts to storm during forced outdoor wrestling matches. Whenever the stakes seem higher and less desirable, she beams even wider.

When the boys sit down for a fancy dinner, they tremble and hold back tears, yet the woman never reprimands their table manners, and she has a softer look, having removed her black lipstick. Her potential attempt to appear a bit more approachable does not cause the members to let their guards down in the slightest, which is apparent when she goes for a walk at night and sees crumbs on the road; they presumably feared what she would do were she to find those crumbs on her dining room floor. After the flashlight shines on the crumbs, text appears on top of her close-up: “The line was never meant to hold anyone.” 

The man frees the TEMPEST members in the middle of the night. They flee to the beach, where they have carefree fun in the sun in loose-fitting outfits. (TEMPEST have changed out of their gym-class-ready uniforms from the forced wrestling matches and manual labor, and the man now wears one of those uniforms, as if they have switched roles.) But this is not a story about someone who pretends to be in cahoots with the enemy before revealing he has been on TEMPEST’s side the entire time. His wife has also never actually been an enemy. At the video’s end, she joins her husband and the boys on the beach, smiling as she holds her husband’s hand and joins them on the shoreline. She seems glad the boys have found freedom, too. 

The woman doesn’t try as hard to relate to the boys - after all, she sticks to her all-black, formal attire instead of wearing their uniform -  but that does not mean she is her husband’s narrative foil. She is not evil and never actually harms anyone. She just makes living a rule-bound life so miserable that eventual resistance is inevitable. She gets the boys to recognize the agony and banality of living constrained lives, hoping that on their own time, they will free themselves. She eventually stops letting this happen on their own timeline, though, and she speeds things up by employing her husband to stage a middle-of-the-night escape. She gives TEMPEST a space to try being rebellious, to show them that messing up is not the end of the world, and when that is not enough to compel them to rebel, she has her husband give them an extra nudge. Once the boys get a taste of liberation, as planned, they crave more and more of it. 

The headmasters take different approaches to teaching the same lessons about people being their own harshest critics and about personal autonomy being closer to one’s grasp than assumed.

#6: TWICE, TEN: The Story Goes On
Like always, TWICE navigate life’s hiccups with laughter and camaraderie, in both “ME+YOU” and an album trailer. The former includes many Easter eggs, one comedic mishap after another, and a “grateful to have each other” message. In the latter, they each partake in a talent show with a different skill related to the number ten, from zoning out for ten hours straight to keeping an ASMR volume below ten decibels! The lightheartedness of TWICE’s early years is still there; it has just widened the forms it takes to focus more on each individual’s contributions to that essence. 

Similarly, no TWICE member compromises her individual musical instincts to align with the group’s identity for her solo track on TEN: The Story Goes On. NAYEON has a rapper’s confidence when she says she’s “yours to lose” in “MEEEEEE.” SANA’s song is also flirty, but in a cutesier and more “lalala”-laden way! JIHYO conveys a comparable confidence, but with a more R&B sensibility. DAHYUN adds her own cunning and classical-music-derived characteristics to a confident statement with “CHESS.” TZUYU lets her high pitch dazzle in “DIVE IN.” CHAEYOUNG’s UK garage song “IN MY ROOM” sounds like an outtake from her debut solo album. JEONGYEON’s country jam is a delightful surprise! Lastly, MINA and MOMO demand attention with songs that are made for unforgettable dance routines. Different songs align in different ways - attitude-wise, lyrically, or sonically - while standing apart, reiterating how naturally TWICE make a great team.

With both nostalgia and proof of each member’s solo star power, TEN: The Story Goes On celebrates who the group has been, are, and can become.

#5: Xdinary Heroes, LXVE to DEATH
As previously unpacked in this essay, this band willingly walks the fine line between life and death, with songs and videos that laugh in danger’s face despite sometimes getting weak-kneed before it. Propulsive music and emotionally charged words give each song the essence of a live wire, a tightrope that triggers waves of destruction if it frays too much. The hot-to-the-touch volatility comes with some elementary-school rhetoric (for example, they analogize their romance-related woes to “Ring Around the Rosies” and “Tug of War”) and adolescent rage (“I’ll gladly burn to love you,” they declare in “FiRE (My Sweet Misery)”), so while the band shows matured musicality, their sound still has an uncontainable format befitting youthful angst.

Xdinary Heroes treat life as a risky whirlwind, but the times they complain about it do not involve getting off the ride; they would always rather lean into than away from the chaos! In “Lost and Found,” they describe life as “hollow” amidst instrumental acceleration. They yell about a “LOVE CRASH!” and “[o]verheating” in “ICU,” yet the video comes in bright packaging. The album trailer is similarly goofy and grim. The members try to revive a giant stuffed animal who is at death’s door post-wisdom teeth removal. The animal’s final words are along the lines of “I had a good run” and come out of a radio when the dial is turned. There is much to read into here, from the way a source of music is how someone’s message lives on to the removal of “wisdom” from this character’s body!

LXVE to DEATH pairs an edgy sound with a “loving and living on the edge” mantra. The result is a tribute to a perceived dichotomy that Xdinary Heroes continuously explore: how life is all about feeling loved, “found,” and seen, yet none of that is possible unless one takes seemingly death-defying risks. Nothing will be handed to them on a silver platter - as they put it in a previous era, in “Beautiful Life,” “No one’s here to find you,” and “No one’s here to love you.” Yet they keep reaching for love in the “Lost and Found” bin anyway!

#4: RADWIMPS, Anew
This album stays in this rock band’s existential wheelhouse, and pre-release single “Tamamono” has proven to foreshadow what Anew is all about: life’s many confounding components. RADWIMPS expand on the themes in“Tamamono” by applying a cynical gaze to their societal assessments, constantly changing their contemplations’ formats (the cadences, the lengths, the sounds…), and all the while maintaining a specific worldview that makes each song a RADWIMPS one. Their spectrum of frustration fluctuates from downright nihilism to healthy skepticism, as they try to make meaning out of a seemingly meaningless life while knowing that, like the outcomes of their song-making sessions, the results will vary!

They start with “Meidai,” in which they argue that the world has gone mad, is full of fakery, lacks compassion, and does not extend as much grace as it used to (“[T]his age where words are spun like blades / Where everyone is forced into the ‘Best Poker Face’ championship”). They scoff at self-proclaimed “life pros” that think they know how to optimize something as unpredictable as life, question why formal education has not prepared them for so many “real-world” challenges, and lament how endless the search for fulfillment feels. Two summative lyrics of their frustrations: “The plaintiff seats overflow, while the defendant’s bench is left empty,” and “Someday, both hatred and love will vanish just the same.” They wonder what good it does to be there for someone when, first of all, in this day and age, that person might not be inclined to return the favor, and second of all, good-faith and bad-faith efforts both end the same. Why choose the moral path that requires more emotional effort and investment when the easier and less-moral path leads to the same ultimate ending of non-existence?! 

On some songs, they seem to find meaning in that temporariness. After all, it is easier to appreciate something when knowing it will not always be there. As they put it in “World End Girl Friend,” “[A]ll will crumble to dust one day / That thought makes everything glow on the eve of decay.” Life is “probably a losing game,” they shrug in “DASAI DAZAI,” and it mostly “depends on the aesthetics of how to lose”!

The “It’s worth a try” mindset is replaced with the “Why bother trying?” one at times. They describe life as full of pluses and minuses that cancel each other out (“reduced to zero”) in “Echo in the Ruins.” And in “MAAFAKA,” they seem to give up on making their own song: “It’s always easier to start… [W]hy’s it so damn difficult / To finish?” So they give up, keeping the song just over two minutes long and the lyrics primarily mindless! However, they ultimately decide that life is a game worth playing. As they sing in “Hitsu Zetsu,” “If goodbye ever comes, it’ll come laughing, with joy for having met.” RADWIMPS might question how much currency effort and integrity still have, but they remain willing to offer their two cents anyway!

#3: Hitsujibungaku, Don’t Laugh It Off
With lyrics that pierce through a human core and an alternative, somewhat shoegaze-inspired sound, Hitsujibungaku prove to be as profound as they are proficient, with music encapsulating life’s most beautiful yet fragile sides and corners. Their insightful ways with words come in many categories and stress certain points through their repetition. They routinely say “somehow” while marveling at how mysterious the human spirit is: “Another empty day drifts past yet somehow ties me to tomorrow” (“itoshiihibi”); “this pain is setting me free somehow” (“cure”); “the seams of the world come loose somehow” (“tears”). They frequently fret about life’s impermanence: “How am I supposed to prove I exist?” (“Haru no Arashi”); “[W]hat I used to dream slips from my hands like smoke” (“Runner”); “I want to hold it tight so it won’t slip away” (“Feel”). Relatedly, they yearn for stability and comfort, often mentioning coldness, trembling, and hollowness: “My words are still trembling” (“Feel”); “I’ve learned to hold this emptiness inside” (“cure”); “I escaped into a warm room” (“Haru no Arashi”). Connected to the theme of fearing being unmemorable and unseen - existing as if a mere apparition - is the theme of seeking an inner spark that seems to come naturally to everyone else: “I’m not like those shining people” (“Itoshiihibi”); “Even when those moments pile so high, I just hope one becomes a star” (“Ai ni tsuite”). 

Seeking meaning, often feeling like that search is futile, normalizing struggling and feeling empty and inadequate… all of these themes could make for a doom-and-gloom album. But instead, Hitsujibungaku convey a quietly courageous spirit, daring to use and keep their voices. They characterize their words, and language in general, as sustenance. Language is what they spit out when nervous, bite down on when angry or in need of bravery, swallow when overwhelmed, and consume for energy. They try to “chase the words that float through” in “Haru no Arashi.” They try “not to stumble on the words of love” in “Ai ni tsuite.” And in “cure,” “Words spill out from closing scars, thoughts [they] chewed and hid too far.” The multidimensionality they give words reflects the multidimensionality they want to live with within themselves. Literally and metaphorically, they want to speak up. As they sing in “Burning,” “[B]ite down on the words that tremble… I spit them out…  I’ve been screaming, ‘Please notice me’ / Until my voice is hoarse.” They find the certainty they’ve been seeking in those words, recalling how waves bring “back voices from that day” in “Sonotoki,” and appreciating how “The words [someone] gave [them] that day… won’t fade away” in “Koe.” 

Of course, words can also be the opposite of helpful, and “doll” laments “The words that wound [and] the scars they leave.” But the pros of words carrying weight outweigh the cons. Speaking up empowers them and helps them find that inner strength and spark. They sing in “Runner,” “A voice is calling out my name / It stirs my soul, it lights the flame / I grit my teeth and hold it in / I know that’s where it must begin.” One more group of lyrics worth reflecting on is in “Feel”: “Everyone has wings they’ve long forgotten / But in our fear, we just overlook them.”

#2: Yerin Baek, Flash and Core
Flash and Core takes as much time as Yerin Baek needs to present a comprehensive, unflinching assessment of a toxic relationship and its impacts. Each song is treated like an artifact worth holding and observing gingerly; she wants to leave no stone unturned and no feeling unpacked when it comes to who stole her autonomy and how she regained it. 

She processes some of a relationship’s worst periods by telling those stories as if they have happened to someone else. For example, she personifies karma in “Karma calls,” and she names the person who feels free as a bird “Sammy” in “Television star.” Other memories are recalled slowly and thoroughly, and “Karma calls,” “DUST ON YOUR MIND,” and “Your Yerin” all have what are more like lists than lyrics. “Take pills” and “Your Yerin” both involve stretched-out words, separate syllables floating heavily in the air. Other songs start and end the same way, as if part of a therapy exercise where one repeats an old, distorted thought until it loses its logic and meaning. “A television makes someone a star,” she says to start and end “Television star,” despite seeming to learn she can shine in her own way between those lyrics (“Some grow roots instead of fame / And they still carry [a] quiet flame”). A similar regression is in “You broke my heart but..,” which starts and ends with “I still dream about you.” Yet as complex as it proves to be to extricate herself from her toxic ex, she does eventually succeed, seeing him treating her like artwork as objectification and projection, not a sign of respect and recognition. In “Lovers of Artist,” she sings, “I’m not the subject / I’m the set,” and, “I wasn’t the icon, just the incident.” In “Your Yerin,” she recalls, “Like art, you framed me.” In “save me,” she realizes, “I called my mess a gift to you / You just loved the way I needed you.” And she sums it all up in “Teary lover”: “My life used to be mine / Before I handed it over to all the wrong people.” She adds, “Wanted to be stronger for you, but all I had were my broken pieces.”

Flash and Core is the ultimate revenge album, because it uses a toxic person’s tools against that person. It is a body of work about how an ex treated Yerin Baek like a body of work, something to be used more than loved. She does the same to her ex now, making the ex her subject. In eloquent and sometimes enigmatic ways, she eventually finds herself in contexts outside of that subject. 

#1: YUTA, PERSONA
While YUTA’s excellent first full-length solo album, Depth, is more about coming into his own, PERSONA focuses more on guiding others through a similar process of dreaming and self-discovery. Go-to exclamations throughout PERSONA are along the lines of “Make some noise!,” “Break it down!,” “Now or never!,” and “Exceed the limit!” The commands to live solely according to one’s own standards are relentless instead of roundabout. This keeps more attention on the music than the words, which is fortunate, because YUTA has an ear for detail. He knows just what to add to give each song an extra pop: a vocal growl that has a “just getting started,” warm-up quality to it in “New World;” reverberations in “Two Of Us” and “Get Out Of My Mind” that give mid-song transitions an extra jolt; dramatic pauses in “KNOCK KNOCK” and “When I’m Not Around” that leave listeners in suspense… He even makes a statement through what he omits! Most of the songs end abruptly, but “If We Lose It All Tonight” ends with five seconds of silence, suiting the topic. The “quiet verses and loud choruses” contrast further heightens a push-and-pull tension. The most artful finishing touches, though, are in “Possiboo-hoo.” It earns its sense of triumph over time, as both he and the guitars wail more and more aggressively. 

Although many of the lyrics in PERSONA do not require reading between the lines, there are some worth stopping to note. Their mid-song edits show how, as much as PERSONA is more than the sum of its parts, each part is a full sequence. In “New World,” a lyric changes from “Creation and destruction, the seen and the hidden… Going around and around toward the destined place” to “Creation and destruction, the seen and the hidden… Let us give a name to the nameless flower.” A lyric in “If We Lose It All Tonight” changes from “Question it one more time / Now it’s time for you to rise” to “Question it one more time / Even if you take the fall.” And in “TO LOVE SOMEONE,” the line that comes before “On the day of giving up / I reach out my hand” changes from “Struggling, writhing” to “Let’s keep love going.”

Like the pre-released single “TWISTED PARADISE” and YUTA’s older songs, PERSONA’s new songs frame contrasts as critical, rather than conflicting. He sings about one-way roads while also singing about eternally traveling and shining. He sings about being saved by someone, as if that person is a guardian angel, but he also repeatedly references inescapable demons. And he addresses the ironies in romance head-on in the “TO LOVE SOMEONE” intro: “[W]e know there’s love in every pain.” Nothing is mutually exclusive, and YUTA sings about feelings that are as deep and real as they come at the same time as he compares his relationship to a staged production. This painful production actually has a sense of humor to it, as “Two Of Us” reiterates with the line “It’s so funny, I could laugh” and the outro: “Look… we’re laughing.”

Another layer of irony comes from the ways that YUTA’s songs indicate gradual growth yet often reuse the same language. He most notably circles back in “If We Lose It All Tonight,” which is connected to both “TWISTED PARADISE” (“Break the chains”) and “Possiboo-hoo” (“days that feel like a maze”): “I break these chains alone… fight through the maze.” Furthermore, he references feeling “imprisoned,” bringing to mind the Depth song “PRISONER.” He is trapped in a familiar loop and wouldn’t have it any other way.

One final way YUTA speaks volumes with both what he does and does not do, lyrically and tonally, is how he ends his albums. Depth concludes with waves of emotion crashing and subsiding, generating a relative sense of stillness and certainty as he gives himself final words to live by: “I won’t stop believ[ing] in myself. Never, ever.” PERSONA is similar, going from thrilling highs and lows to a quiet stillness, as he says at the end of “TO LOVE SOMEONE,” “Be the light.” 

Overall, this album is as eventful and exciting as expected from such a rockstar! 

Catch up on past “Best of the Month” reviews here!