Music Overview: IVE – XOXZ

Although IVE have often dipped into completely different genres, they’ve loved their largest chart success with a bombastic pop sound. You don’t must look any additional than this 12 months’s Insurgent Coronary heart and Perspective, with the anthemic pre-release simply outperforming the precise title observe. New single XOXZ sees them returning to an edgier hip-hop sound with underwhelming outcomes.

I’m unsure what number of followers had been clamoring for “IVE over a lure beat,” but when that’s been your biggest want you’re in luck with XOXZ. The group takes a way more minimalist strategy right here, with sparse manufacturing and a refrain pushed by speaking fairly than singing. This strategy would possibly fare higher in that case many different acts weren’t already utilizing it. In spite of everything, I can nonetheless bear in mind how contemporary and transformative SNSD’s The Boys sounded so a few years in the past. Nonetheless, Ok-pop has traversed a lot sonic floor since then, making most songs come throughout as new takes on current tropes fairly than legitimately new horizons.

Within the case of XOXZ, we’ve received a missmatch between artist and tune. Sure, a part of IVE’s enchantment is their fashionable iciness and this observe brings that out in spades, however an even bigger cause for his or her success includes iconic melodies and a way of musical storytelling. Underneath that standards, XOXZ feels undercooked. Its verses are limp and unmemorable and the pre-chorus (usually house to their most bombastic melodies) comes and goes with out a lot impact. The resounding refrain is extra profitable, however solely by a hair. Its echoey sound fools us into pondering the hook is extra grand than it’s. Nonetheless, it’s like we’re solely listening to the boring, filler components of XOXZ whereas its highlights had been by some means left on the reducing room ground. It’s a confounding selection for a title observe, particularly from IVE.

Grade: C