The Best New Music, Part 1

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

View the Substack version of this piece here!

Since the first priority was releasing the “Best of 2025 So Far” series, the “Best of the Month” series was put on hold, so thank you for your patience! It’s finally time to reveal the Top Twenty of August!

#20: Ben, “The Way You Got Me”
As Ben suggests going on a vacation with “you” despite “you” being the prettiest scenery he could ever find, his voice exudes warmth and friendliness that are accentuated by a playful piano. Smaller details add to his approachable demeanor, like mid-song phone conversations and the enthusiastic “ay-yay-yay” chants of someone who has stopped caring how it looks to shout his love from the rooftops! While the song on its own is enough to create images in listeners’ heads, the music video also provides them, showing a happy couple’s cute, low-key dates. It ends with them giggling and continuing to sing after the instruments have stopped. The credits roll, and their “Awe!”-inducing displays of affection appear via video camera and physical photos, adding a sense of personalization to a classic tale of young love. After all, Ben insists on memorializing his relationship in a unique way: “You once said / ‘To confess your feelings… just sing a popular love song’... Nah / I just wanna write one all for you myself”!

#19: NONT TANONT & PiXXiE, “BADLY”
This disco-pop jam has both NONT TANONT and PiXXiE straying from their norms. NONT TANONT shows off a sense of rhythm in more ways than one, joining the dance routine and rapping in a more melodic way. As for the members of the T-pop girl group PiXXiE, they rock a bold wardrobe and play peculiar characters. At least one of those characters is a cyborg, a retro-futuristic spin on this 80’s-derived release. PiXXiE’s allure and control over NONT TANONT take both physical and digital forms. One member stops him in his tracks by physically blocking his bow and arrow, as if to say, “That won’t be necessary! I’m already yours - on my terms, that is!” Another member controls him telepathically, via what appears to be an implanted chip. Regardless of the forms PiXXiE’s power over the lovestruck NONT TANONT take, the results are entertaining!

#18: ANGIE, “The way U hate it”
“The way U hate it” is a liberating breakup song that meanders among stylistic lanes instead of walking a straight line. As ANGIE’s voice vibes with the house beat and bluesy guitars alike, she sings about choosing herself: “Watch me take control of my life… Finally, I’m having fun / I’m gonna get what I want.” Her newfound insistence on saying “Goodbye” instead of “I’m sorry” is especially evident when she whispers “Bye bye” before a danceable beat kicks in; a slightly sinister sense of wanting revenge is quickly surpassed by the urge to just move on and stop letting an ex live rent-free in her head! To truly live life on her own terms, ANGIE prioritizes holding on to her sense of relief over any desire for retribution, which suits her breezy tone getting the majority of the time and the dripping-with-disdain tone remaining a fleeting aside. 

“The way U hate it” packs a lot into under three minutes, and similarly, its video makes a bold statement without needing much to do so. The video is a black-and-white one, but her clothes and lips are pops of red that bring attention to her presence and “Read my lips” insistence!

This song’s one flaw is how short it is, but hopefully that motivates people to put it on loop, appreciating its many elements - sass, sultriness, strength - one at a time!

#17: Marz23 & Faye, “An Extraordinary Song”
This compassionate call for self-advocacy reveals rugged-voiced rapper Marz23’s sofer side, as he offers advice with Faye while backed by soaring strings, prominent percussion, and passionate piano-playing. The pair’s voices merge more as the song progresses, not in terms of technical harmonies as much as getting more clearly on the same page, finishing each other’s sentences more. This is a smart approach; like how the sun rises gradually and the mummy-like strips of cloth covering the despairing people in the music video slide off of them gradually, the moral of the story does not come into full view until the end, and when it does, it is hard to miss.

While the sun rises anew in the video, Marz23 and Faye remind people of their inner strength (“Stand up now, this ain’t the end / Even if the road ahead breaks and bends”), note that giving up lets naysayers declare victory ( “Tell me, is that what you want? / To let them laugh when you concede? / Remember how you held your dream so tight / Even when the chase drained all your light”), and reassure people their unnoticed efforts will not stay that way (“Let the struggles bloom, let the sunrise glow / And the beauty of the fight will show”). 

With skill and a strange but effective visual presentation, Marz23 and Faye validate one’s daily struggles - especially those that are hidden - and promise that carrying on is something that people won’t regret: “No matter what tomorrow brings / At least you burned with everything.”

#16: PURPLE KISS, OUR NOW
PURPLE KISS’s final album before their November disbandment is a beautiful and bittersweet gift. It closes the loop on their bewitching, years-long narrative, in which they have played witches and turned uninspired topics into whimsical source material. They sing about putting a curse on an ex in “Unhappily Ever After,” pulling crushes under their irresistible spell in songs like “memeM” and “Zombie,” and becoming the witch archetype that haters might try to smear them as in “Sweet Juice” (the telling line from a video that summarizes OUR NOW’s songs: “Trapped under the world’s gaze, we became the witches they imagined”). Beyond fictional applications, their pure talent has enabled them to continuously turn ordinary ingredients into extraordinary musical magic! The two brand-new songs on this album (which primarily consists of new English versions of older songs) are great examples. The self-explanatory “WANT U BACK” gives each PURPLE KISS member a chance to show off distinct vocal colors, and “Unhappily Ever After” perfectly times its string-backed moments and beat drops to enhance the most in-character moments.

As for the new music video for the English version of “DOREMI,” it harkens back to the Korean “DOREMI” video but makes some key edits. Ironically, the videos’ most important commonality is their ambiguity! Both have up-to-interpretation endings, showing that PURPLE KISS want fans to finish the story themselves. This explains why the album is called OUR NOW; like the mix of acting and approachability that have defined past eras, they only want to celebrate being unique if listeners and viewers decide to do so too.

#15: Maiyarap, TRU BLUE
TRU BLUE is a testament to Maiyarap’s multifaceted finesse. He shows off his skill at transitioning between rapping (or, at times, singing in a talk-like way) and singing at full force; he has great intuition regarding what components of pop songs and ballads most neatly overlap; and he proves savvy at using background voices as strong complements, rather than overpowering supplements. His “tru” talents take on many forms, and while he is clearly aware of his strong suits, he also dares himself to dabble outside of them. For example, he sticks to smooth crooning at a mid-tempo pace in “นิสัยเดิม” (“Old Habits”), but he also turns up the noisiness during the rap-focused verses.

The “TRU” emotional highs are exceptions to the “BLUE” norm, ensuring the hard pivots do not overextend their welcome. An example of one of the more fluid transitions is from “แค่คนโทรปลุก” (“Just a Wake-Up Call”) to “วิวาห์ลาไทร” (“The Last Wedding”), the latter ballad having a fuller sound to match its heightened degree of sorrow and widened gap between ideal and real circumstances. Songs that are relatively minimal come before and after ones that are busier, making the track order just as well-done as everything else about TRU BLUE.

#14: BoA, Crazier
Although Crazier does not take BoA far out of her comfort zone, she has more than earned the right to play it safe, as this album celebrates her 25th career anniversary! She makes no secret of her global impacts and has a lot of fun emphasizing them in the title track’s music video and lyrics. “It’s a crazy world / I’ve seen it all / But guess what? / I’m crazier,” she declares, and her video behavior is the antithesis of rule-bound. She is not preoccupied with any set storyline or aesthetic direction. She rocks sporty clothes with flashy, trendier pieces. She treats a junkyard as her red carpet and dance floor! She stays in control of her own image literally when she shoves a camera out of the way. And she brings the literal fire wherever she goes, wherever her feet step! Notably, her tires also emit flames as she drives away, showing how she doesn’t just bring the heat but spreads it for others to catch and try to recreate!

BoA goes further than touting her legacy and career longevity. She also passes the torch, using “Crazier” as a rallying cry. She repeats, “When they get loud / We’ll get louder / They’ll hear us coming / When they get mad / We’ll get madder / They’ll feel us coming” (emphases added). Also, she asks, “Shall we flip the game?” (again, emphasis added), knowing that she could flip it on her own but wanting to give others the chance! Indeed, throughout the video, people “go crazy” right along with her!

Overall, Crazier and its music video celebrate how BoA has inspired and continues to inspire people to pursue K-pop careers.

#13: JUNNY, null
null is like brewing a strong and specific coffee order. The rough beginning, “No Morning” (which starts out sounding like a raw demo before the quality clears up), has the energy of a coffee machine growling to life! Then, JUNNY smoothly pours one musical flavor after another into these R&B tracks, adding pinches of extra ingredients here and there without noticeably disrupting the custom order. He maintains a sure sense of direction; he knows where to go sonically and does so with the only detours being of his own spontaneous-presenting volition. In short, he catches a vibe and rides it! 

The first half is a sweeter listen, while the second half slows things down for a moodier vibe akin to the caffeine effects wearing off! Listeners can “change their order” during the listening experience if they want, since “Provider” is like two songs in one and is a bridge between the higher- and lower-energy halves. 

Whether treating null as a two-in-one album or as separate orders, it is primed to satisfy!

#12: BOWKYLION & Jeff Satur, “circus”
“circus,” naturally, makes a spectacle out of hurt feelings, and the symbolism is in more than just the obvious places. The opening sequence, which resembles paper dolls, and the crowdedness of a small stage, filled with others who also have clown makeup on, reiterate the “This is all just for show” bottom line. Everyone knows this is all an act but would rather go through the motions of it than confront painful truths. The story unfolds several layers removed from reality and under restricted circumstances, and that is partly their own faults.

Jeff Satur and BOWKYLION perform classic stunts and magic acts, like knife-throwing and appearing to saw someone in half. But their minds stay elsewhere, on someone by whom they feel betrayed. “Kept me hidden, like our love was wrong / You erased where we once belonged,” they mourn. “I gave you my all / Till I found out the truth / That you finally let us fall,” they sing, which changes the interpretation of Jeff Satur freeing BOWKYLION by cutting her puppet strings. Also changing the interpretations of their performances are the flashbacks that interrupt them, of BOWKYLION with her now-ex-best friend, before a lover got between them. That ex-friend attends their show and stays stoic when others applaud. The lack of a heartfelt reconciliation suits the devastating final lyrics: “We are the circle of circus[es] / You planted but never gave me rain / I never asked if you felt the same / Spoke of love, but you never once said my name.” A simple curtain call ends the video with a reminder that who they thought loved them actually loved a caricature of them, yet breaking up is so painful that they feel compelled to keep playing that part after the truth has come to light.

The song’s themes are also done justice by the instruments, from the guitar intro that shows their need to grab attention to the more subdued periods of drumming and strumming that accompany their sad reminiscing.

Outside of this song’s specific message, Jeff Satur and BOWKYLION prove to be a terrific pair, harmonizing well and boosting each other’s note-climbing! Also, they fortunately split the spotlight, with BOWKYLION gracing the first verse and Jeff Satur nailing the second one.

#11: AB6IX, UPSIDE DOWN
UPSIDE DOWN is about a time when AB6IX’s world feels that way, but they learn how to flip it back to right-side-up, by rediscovering their inner dreamers, finding a sense of community, and taking the initiative to map out their ideal futures. 

After singing with fake bravado on “Square Up,” trying to sound tough by cursing and touting how easily they can defeat their opponents, they sing about the isolation that can come with age. In “STUPID,” they sing about feeling “cut off” from and more wary of others: “Now I’m bruised hard by the world.” But the rest of the album goes from an “I want to be stronger and more successful someday” mindset to an “I can put in the effort and have what it takes to make it happen” one. On “Friday Trouble,” they sing, “I’m all ready… Even though there’s no set plan… I’ll draw myself.” They again talk about “drawing” their futures in “A Million Dreams” and “Plan for You,” and both of those songs thank loved ones for making dreaming again possible. The way out of the emotional hole they reference in “STUPID”: grabbing companions’ hands to get pulled out of it. 

The “STUPID” music video reiterates how much less arduous growing up is when accepting help. Each AB6IX member has a signature object, and as they hand each other suitcases, the objects pop out of them. Elsewhere, flowers burst forth like confetti, including out of a wall that was once made of luggage but later consists of stereo speakers. Another notable detail is the change to the party scene. The members party together with one of them always appearing like a loner who would rather be elsewhere, but at the end, no one looks like that; they all smile and dance, finding happiness with each other and in the present moment. It’s easier to have fun in the here and now when the impending future doesn’t seem so overwhelming!

#10: TWICE, ENEMY
It remains impressive that whenever TWICE use the element of surprise, they do so in ways that stay on-brand, and ENEMY is a great example. Their music stays sounding like their music, even when it spins 180 degrees, like in angsty J-rock songs. Those stay rooted in TWICE’s typical optimism and encouragement. For example, the title track implies people should fear TWICE’s rage (“Don’t try to test me… I’m so mad”) but goes on to characterize the “burning” in them as a soft glow, lighting their paths (“Deal with it my way and glow”) - after all, “Even a flower cannot bloom without swaying.” The other focus track, “Like 1,” has both strong positive and negative feelings, as they sing about the fleeting and uncontrollable passage of time (“Know there will come a time / For a bittersweet salute… Stay in this moment now / But we don’t get to choose…”). The music video, which bids farewell to an imaginary friend, shows the simultaneous desire to cling to someone or something and accept that one’s grip will inevitably loosen with time.

TWICE continue to deliver classic pop music but prove to excel in far more flavors than those for which they tend to get credit.

#9: YUJU, In Bloom
In thoughtful and eloquent ways, YUJU looks inwards to make sense of what a relationship was really like. She finds words for hard-to-pinpoint feelings that come from not just bittersweet nostalgia, but from difficulty disentangling deja vu from anemoia. She wonders how many of her impressions of a relationship she has gotten all wrong, and the fear that the answer is “most of them” compels her to promptly document fresh-in-her-mind recollections. The sense that she is in a race against time collides with a sense of cosmic yearning. She constantly puts her feelings into the universe while feeling like they are just floating there. In “REPLY,” she sings, “The words I never said / Gather in the empty spaces / Clearly reaching you…” She hints at regret in “Sequence”: “Carrying this emptiness / I hope my shouted voice / Didn’t reach you…” And in “moonstruck love,” she requests, “If… you give me space to miss you… think of me a lot / There’s nothing sadder / Than memories fading away…”

Besides filling empty spaces with words, a recurring theme throughout In Bloom is hearing more volumes spoken through eye contact: “I want to take it all in with my eyes” (“Sequence”); “Your silence speaks in your eyes… this, too, is love” (“No Matter”). A third theme is a conflicting desire to rewind a tape of memories and to erase it and start a new one: “I hope the you and I contained in that scene / Don’t fade away,” she says in “Sequence.” But she sounds like she favors a clean slate in “No Matter”: “Let’s act like we’re meeting for the first time.” Additionally, “moonstruck love” casts doubt on her recollections (“Even if it was a dream…”) and implies it will be easier to carry on after throwing those away (“The dream I’m having… Keeps getting longer / The more I have to wake up and forget”).

YUJU elegantly pairs interstellar metaphors with a down-to-earth demeanor. 

#8: HANRORO, JAMONG SALGU CLUB
Here is one way to interpret this album’s fictional story: The point-of-view keeps changing between HANRORO and a love interest (whether that is platonic or romantic love is up to the listeners to decide, although it is platonic in the “Goodbye, My Summer” music video). “Welcome!” and “Light or Rain” are HANRORO’s songs. She sings with relief about a stranger who is her “savior.” “May I dare to cry out with you in this moment?,” she asks during her high-energy “Welcome!” She has a pinch-me moment, wondering if this is all “just a dream.” “For a day, I delay the dive,” she decides. In “Light or Rain,” backed by a soft acoustic sound, she asks related questions: “If I pour all my warmth into those growing weeds, will they become the tallest tree?;” “If I send my dreams afloat in this sleeping dawn, will I become the finest grown-up?” 

While HANRORO wonders if “it’s okay to cry here” and seems to be foreshadowing, the other person’s point-of-view appears to be in hindsight and is therefore more cynical; the other person does offer a safe space for tears but is aware of that space’s limits. In “The Suspect,” the love interest wonders, “I held her as she faded… is it truly my fault?” The love interest asks for forgiveness for not holding and consoling HANRORO longer in “To. _.”

Other songs can more plausibly be interpreted as coming from either point-of-view. “Goodbye, My Summer” describes someone “frozen in time” in memories, and “0+0” asks a favor of each other: “I will never lose us / And you’ll never let go either, will you?”

Ironically, the song called “Can I Be Me?” seems to be voiced by the love interest, with lyrics like “Does she know?” and a request that she “stop crying.” The music video keeps questions open: “Can I be me?” appears on the screen at text at the end, on top of a lone spotlight on an empty stage. The sound further complicates conclusions; low-energy guitar-strumming turns into a high-volume example of a “Last hurrah” after a draining journey.

Even if JAMONG SALGU CLUB is not meant to be interpreted in any of the above ways at all, HANRORO shows her talent for tempting people to read into her musical idiosyncrasies.

#7: IVE, IVE SECRET
IVE SECRET speaks to this girl group’s organic maturity. They can still be counted on for polished pop bops, but these songs switch their priority order to put vulnerability over confidence (though both remain). Their tilt into a more confessional stance comes in intrinsically IVE forms, and they keep obvious pride in themselves while permitting themselves to expose that pride’s shakable nature. 

IVE SECRET has crowd-pleasing traits on its face, including a rainbow-hued music video and catchy hooks and repetition (“Girls, girls, girls,” they repeat in “Wild Bird;” “Get ya, get ya, got ya,” they taunt in “GOTCHA (Baddest Eros)”). But there is also much to admire beneath the surface, and each track is its own full-fledged character. “XOXZ” is IVE’s attempt at coining a new phrase: “I love you, good night, and see you in my dreams.” “Wild Bird” walks through the past, with lyrics about watching old footage of themselves (“Child on the screen… the girl’s on wings / My old and forgotten film…”); the present (“Give up? Not my way”); and the future, as they express their intent (“Wings spread out wide / Standing on top of the green hill…”). 

Three love songs take very different approaches: “GOTCHA (Baddest Eros)” references a Greek myth and is about a sensual kind of love, “♥beats” is a more youthful and modern take on love, and “Midnight Kiss” sounds like the voice of a teenage hopeless romantic. The most meaningful song, though, is “Dear, My Feelings,” which is about re-reading old diary entries and honoring past emotional states. Focus track “XOXZ” has an “I want it all” message, while “Dear, My Feelings” has a “You already have it all” message, a reminder that people both have endured and have been blessed more than they remember. “Dear, My Feelings” also best encapsulates what is new about IVE’s concept in how its lyrics come in a familiar style but are now self-directed. Comments and gestures are made less to make a widely-seen statement and more to resolve things internally.

By not going from zero to 100 when it comes to having confidence or a lack thereof, IVE SECRET​ is the best of both worlds, with a cute and colorful presentation yet no hesitation towards intimate introspection.

#6: Sunset Rollercoaster, QUIT QUIETLY
As much as this indie band claims to have made this album with a “back to basics” mindset, it is far from dull! Their sound continues to stand out for its jazz/pop/psychedelic fusions, and their lyrics continue to stand out for not needing deciphering yet staying very recognizable as their own. “Why didn’t I think of that?!” is an understandable response to their instrumental and lyrical choices; they come across as simple yet also not!

“Wind of Tomorrow” is Sunset Rollercoaster’s interpretation of a Japanese proverb, “Tomorrow’s winds will blow tomorrow,” about not worrying about things that might not even happen. The group takes the voice of a greyhound in “Piccolo Amore,” likening their loyalty and instinct to comfort a lover to those of a pet! They give voices to other non-humans, too, including Pluto and one of its moons in “Charon’s Gone”! 

When singing from their own perspective, they still show their eccentricities, in their type of humor (“Humor Tumor,” which tries to lighten the mood while anticipating a concerning prognosis), their eyebrow-raising ways of putting matter-of-fact proclamations (“I left the sky / Oh, and you,” they announce in “Charon’s Gone”!), and their mood swings that appear via mid-lyric swaps (from “People never change / We stumbled again / On the same mistakes” to “How the morning breaks / We stumbled again / On the same mistakes” in “Mistakes;” from “Just let my blue lips softly speak / To you” to  “Just let my green eyes softly blink / At you” in “Bluebird”...).

It makes sense for QUIT QUIETLY to end without really ending. “Fading Out” concludes that “No one’s coming home,” and that the “home” their words have constructed will now be disassembled without explanation: “Breaking down without a pattern.” There is no grand resolution, no curiosity satiated, just a semi-ending to an off-kilter venting session!

#5: BABYMETAL, METAL FORTH
These J-rock icons’ presence is as explosive as ever! Each song fires on all cylinders, always staying rage-ready, rave-ready, or, most often, a dizzying mix of the two! BABYMETAL add their classic “Kawaii” signatures to an expansive slate of collaborations, and they further personalize the range of songs with references to Japanese culture, like creatures from folklore in “Kon! Kon!” and chants commonly made at traditional festivals in “METAL!!” METAL FORTH is a fast-paced flight around the world that goes everywhere from North America (with collaborations with Texas-based prog-rockers Polyphia, the U.S.-based soloist Poppy, the Canadian metalcore group Spiritbox…) to Germany (with the “electronicore” trio Electric Callboy) to New Delhi (with metal band Bloodywood). They hold their own just as well on feature-less tracks. “KxAxWxAxIxI” tells a full story with instruments alone, making the cute-meets-cursed descriptions just an amusing bonus (“Hiding the fight with a stuffed toy / Biting with pain, the sweet ploy;” “Ribbon sways, breaking the dark / With a sweet trap, I make my mark”)! “Algorism” proves this group is great at using their voices to both generate new suspense and build off of its pre-existing presence. Lastly, “White Flame ー白炎ー” ends with the sound of everything all at once, leaving in the ultimate blaze of glory!

#4: JEON SOMI, Chaotic & Confused
Instead of asking, “Who am I?,” Chaotic & Confused asks, “Who are any of us, really? Could we ever really know that?!” These songs acknowledge the vast spectrum of human emotions and the near-nauseating swiftness with which one’s place on that spectrum can change. People can feel like they have a strong sense of self one moment and can feel like the ground is pulled out from under them the next; they can feel buried under heavy feelings one day and feel as light as a feather the next. When, why, and how those changes precisely occur are always just guesstimates, like predicting the weather - which JEON SOMI tries to do in a weather-report-themed teaser video! (The opening track, “Escapade,” also acknowledges a fickle forecast and suggests just “throw[ing] away the umbrella [to] dance together”!) Since people cannot know for sure why they are the way they are, they might as well enjoy life’s chaotic mysteries! JEON SOMI certainly does, chasing thrills and going “mad” in “Escapade,” getting annoyed with someone being “too subtle” in “EXTRA,” and growing impatient with an evasive ex in “DELU.” She best summarizes the agony and ecstasy of living it up on the title track, which changes personalities mid-song, mixes genres, exclaims “I wanna buy the city, burn it up too / All in one afternoon,” and questions everything: “Am I bitter or am I smart? / Can I go crazy if I call it art?”

Reveling in chaos and confusion is the name of the game in both the “CLOSER” and “EXTRA” music videos. In “CLOSER,” disintegration is the norm. Smoke, flames, water, a strange silver substance… something is constantly erupting! The closest to closure the story gets is at the end, when two versions of SOMI hug each other, but that silver substance melts in a pool around them; the real-time dissipation continues. 

In “EXTRA,” SOMI differentiates herself from the literal dummies around her, but she also benefits from times when she passes for one of them; they distract those who might turn on her. Also, a sense of precariousness remains even when SOMI is treated like a queen, as people carry her on a stretcher that is repurposed as if it is her throne. 

What statement is she trying to make with all this? Even she doesn’t know for sure, nor does she think she ever fully could! 

#3: Stray Kids, KARMA
KARMA is a classic Stray Kids release in infinite ways! It is written and composed entirely by subunit 3RACHA, it follows the group’s typical approach of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, and it is as spirited and self-congratulatory as it gets. With such genre-averse music, it would be forgivable if Stray Kids kept the corresponding music videos relatively run-of-the-mill, but they are far from it. In “BLEEP,” they use barcode scanners in place of guns, and they make multiple figures of speech literal (for example, they sing about starting from the bottom as the camera follows a member’s rise from the basement to the top floor). In “CEREMONY,” members are affiliated with different sports, but the premise is executed with dizzying camera swivels, gravity defiance, a surprise famous cameo, and a nod to the ATE era (by biting gold medals)! In “CREED,” the point-of-view is everything from a car’s side mirror to a split screen.

Stray Kids’ seismic sound starts and ends the album, because after the fan song “0801” seems like a soft landing, listeners are reinvigorated with two more renditions of “CEREMONY”! Stray Kids’ party never stops; it just has an occasional pause for a moment of gratitude towards those who support them. It adds likeability and understanding to their lyrics about starting from the bottom - which, as usual, take on comical forms, like comparing their skyrocketing success to a toaster in “CEREMONY”!
 
Other clever and humorous details that make KARMA a classic Stray Kids release: making instruments out of all kinds of noises (tongue-clucking in “BLEEP,” sirens and smooches in “CEREMONY,” cartoonish sound effects mixed with sporting event sounds in “Half-Time”...), self-references (“I feel like I’m the universe” brings to mind the song “MEGAVERSE;” “I was born to take off” in “BLEEP” brings to mind the call to “TAKE OFF!” in “ASTRONAUT”...), and acknowledgements of being globally well-known (they count in Spanish in “Half Time,” and they named a song “CREED” because it translates to a word in Japanese (“Shinjō”) that is similar to the word for “Heart” (“Shinzou”))!

#2: AtHeart, Plot Twist
AtHeart are girls-next-door who dream out loud. They treat all of life’s question marks as exclamation points, but they do so from a soft-spoken, shy stance. Their starry-eyed yet apprehensive feelings come to life through playful key objects in a pre-released video (“Music Collage Film: The Prelude to Plot Twist”), through a relatively subdued take on pop music, and through a tracklist purposefully ordered to follow a journey of getting to know themselves better.

As much as AtHeart are aware they cannot control the future, they draw up visions of it anyway. They refuse to hand over the pen to their stories - or, in the case of the “Plot Twist” music video, the crayon! The ball stays in their court and could “bounce anywhere,” as they describe their affection in the title track! They direct the supporting characters in their stories repeatedly: “Stand right there,” they say in “Plot Twist;” “Come closer… Say what’s on your mind,” they urge in “Push Back.” They make up their own stage directions in real time: “I won’t be shy… I’m heading straight for you,” they say in “Dot Dot Dot…;” “If you think you knew me… you don’t” is their intro for “Knew Me.” They celebrate coming into their own on “Knew Me” (“My gaze is getting clearer / A rhythm that’s truly mine”) and continue to do so on “Good Girl (AtHeart),” gushing about the charms they want to personalize their backpacks with (“things that are so me”) and the lookbooks they want to use to develop a personal sense of style (“Flippin’ through… Wanna know more ‘bout myself”).

The best part of this project is how it comes full circle and gets to the “heart” of identity exploration! The album starts with “Plot Twist” and ends with a pre-debut song that uses “plot twist” in the lyrics (they describe themselves as “the plot twist type” in “Good Girl (AtHeart)”). The “Collage Film” also ends as it begins, and the opening and closing image of a heart-themed music box suggests the scenes unfolding between them are the stuff of their heartfelt dreams. The song “Plot Twist” also closes a loop, starting and ending with acapella segments. The “circling back” nature of this release matches the lyrics’ focus on figuring out who they have always been, as well as the eager willingness to be surprised by what they discover.

#1: KEY, HUNTER
When it comes to honing a signature style and giving the audience something new, KEY strikes a smart balance. He continues to excel in a world of retro sounds and vintage horror aesthetics, but this time, the campiness is dialed down and replaced with something more sincerely sinister. Across an intoxicating array of spliced-and-diced synth experiments, KEY addresses the monsters within each human and questions what feeds their impulses. The videos and songs are both cautionary and pessimistic, casting dark forces as the winners if nothing about society changes. As there seems to be a deficit of interest in curbing AI’s worst impulses, HUNTER feels eerily relevant.

An article in THE HUNTER HERALD warns about an urban legend coming to life that can steal and repurpose voices “with uncanny accuracy.” Another key quote: “Experts remain divided.” Part of the reason why real life feels somewhat surreal these days is because people continue to live on different foundations, abiding by no singular definition of “truth” or “credibility.” KEY works off of this real problem, using his alter ego to keep everything in doubt. A teaser trailer features text on the screen that repeatedly interrupts the action, both for a black-haired KEY and a red-haired KEY. Some of that text reads as follows: “YOU’RE THE HUNTER,” “WHICH ONE,” “YOU’RE THE DISEASE,” and “I’M WATCHING YOU.” He keeps his identity in doubt in the “HUNTER” music video, with the red-haired KEY dragging a suspicious bag to a car trunk but the dark-haired KEY burning presumed crime scene evidence. Red-haired KEY sometimes looks like a victim, like when dark-haired KEY pushes him off of a ledge, but he sometimes looks like the one responsible for suspicious activity, like when he drags around something concealed. (Plus, a teaser video ends with dark-haired KEY being dragged into darkness.) Adding more meta layers to the mysterious mayhem: the “WARNING” screen at the beginning of “HUNTER,” which resembles the copyright warning that plays before movies. The changing screen ratio and a cracked phone on the ground that reads “STATUS: Key is no longer identifiable” raise more doubts as to what is “real.”

Just like the HUNTER videos treat both KEYs as interchangeable, the songs treat monsters and humans that way, describing how robotic some people’s mannerisms can be (“Strange”), how change-resistant some people can be (“Picture Frame”), and how “everyone for themselves” people act (“HUNTER”).

2025 sometimes feels like living in the Uncanny Valley, and KEY’s retro-futuristic storytelling is the perfect match for the modern era. The collective feeling of “Is this real?” has never been more acute or seemed more hopelessly unresolvable, and KEY’s songs and videos suggest that nothing will improve unless the humans and the monsters recognize they are currently one and the same. 

Stay tuned for the “Best of September” and “Best of October” write-ups, coming soon!