Song Review:: xikers: House of Tricky: Watch Out- Bittersweet

• Release date: 2024 September 06

• Album tracklist: Watch Out, Witch, BACK OFF, Bittersweet, Sandcastle, Hang Around

• Album runtime: 17 minutes

I was holding out on my decision for my favorite track of the album until this video came out. Witch might be my favorite title track so far, and I love it so much, but there are actually two tracks from Watch Out that I love more: Bittersweet and Sandcastle. Two very different songs, I know, but they just hit my brain in the exact, right way. But, it bears repeating that the entire album is no-skip for me. Whole thing. Fabulous. Do I love that the two spookiest songs were chosen for the title tracks? Abso-freaking-lutely. Give me more spooky songs from kpop. Coincidentally, this is also why I love Monster by Seventeen's hip hop unit, and the sole reason why I now like the obviously rap heavy songs they do. I find it a little funny that it required me to see them perform it before I liked it. Much like with xikers! I'm pretty consistent.

The very start of the song reminds me a lot of a Stray Kids song, and then it shifts back into a more KQ sound. Much like Ateez has Wonderland as their battle anthem, Bittersweet sounds like it might end up being xikers's. That is a thumping bass they have going on here, and I'm a huge fan of the way the powerful chorus is bookended by the eerie and more ethereal pre- and post-choruses. There's a symmetry there that I appreciate. The absence of the bass in those sections, especially the first where the only beat is a barely audible "dun dun-dun", emphasizes the shift to ready the punch of the chorus. The drop of all instrumentals on the last couple of words in the pre-chorus feels a lot like the quiet before the storm, and rather than a drop in energy, there's a rise in tension. There's also a pound of electric guitar as the song builds in energy towards the climax, layering in to add more of the sound wall. The guitar isn't constant, but it shows up to help propel the song toward the end. The way the refrain and outro at the end drive the song forward like a drill and makes me want to jump is probably my favorite part of what's going on with the song. No rest for the wicked at the end there.

I'm going to start at the end for the vocals, just because that's the part of the song that I'm currently listening to as I begin writing this section. The songwriters could have easily chosen to go the shouting route (which I have been informed is more chanting than shouting...so going forward, I will decide if it actually is chanting or shouting...in xikers's case, it feels a lot more like shouting because of the volume required) there at the end, and even I couldn't have complained about it. Instead, they chose singing. They have some shouting back behind, but it's to compliment and support the singing rather than overpower or overshadow it. Personally, I'm hoping that this is a herald of the end of the shouting era, if even xikers isn't doing it as much. Speaking of the shouting thing, or rather lack thereof, Seeun's pre-chorus is fabulously creepy between the repetition and the sing-song. The impact would not have been there if they'd gone with the common shouting, which goes for the chorus as well. Also, I don't know how they managed it, and by "they", I mean anyone involved in the writing or production of this song, but despite the barely-over-three-minutes runtime, this song feels like it's a four minute song, in a good way. It feels like a complete and fully formed song with transitions and enough time for the vocals and the rapping to have time and space to show off. It's been a problem with their earlier songs that I've felt like they've emphasized the rapping (and the shouting) at the expense of the vocalists. But here, and with Witch as well, both the rappers and the vocalists get time to shine. And yet the runtime. Maybe they really are goblins and warped space-time with this album to pack so much in, without it feeling rushed. I wouldn't be surprised. But the members are showing off in a major way for this album and showing off a lot more depth than they've demonstrated before. This started with their Japanese single, Tsuki (Lunatic), but now they're flexing what they can do for everyone else. Hopefully, they continue to flex and also warp space-time. I'd be okay with that.

I think we've gone full science fiction for the performance video as well as the lore. But, and this is an even better but, we're also adding a healthy dose of horror. There's always been kind of an element of horror to their music videos. Starting with Rockstar, we had teenagers with the ability to get into and manipulate people's dreams. I don't know about you all, but that's a terrifying idea. Then Koong, with the otherworldly being. Do or Die is the, albeit kind of video gameified, zombie music video. But we've never gotten one quite so firmly into the horror as with Bittersweet, and I love it. If Witch is one kind of nightmare, Bittersweet is a very different one. Also, I know it says performance video. But that's not a performance video. That's a full fat music video masquerading as a performance video. The eyes. The mechanical spider legs. Or perhaps they aren't mechanical, which honestly makes it worse, so I'm just going to pretend that they're definitely mechanical spider legs. And we have delicious, delicious lore.

So is this my favorite track from the album? I still don't know, but it's so good.