TWS: TRY WITH US- 마음 따라 뛰는 건 멋지지 않아? (Countdown!)

• Release date: 2025 April 20

• Album tracklist: Lucky to be loved, Countdown!, Random Play, Freestyle, Now Playing, GO BACK

• Album runtime: 15 minutes

 This is a really minor thing, and I don't know if it's just me, but I actually prefer when the English titles follow the literal translation more closely than matching the vibe. The members are stepping into their next era after their school-hood debut era now that they're a whole year old, and with the maknae turning eighteen this year, the English title does make sense in that regard. But I like the flow and lyricism of the original Korean. Which I understand mostly. Yay me. Progress. But if you've been following these reviews for any amount of time, you'll know that I have a soft spot a football stadium wide for all Pledis groups, and TWS feels like the softer side of my beloved NU'EST. I desperately want TWS to be on ASC with Aron. It would feel so full circle. However, because I generally like songs released by Pledis groups when I'm listening to them as a fan, I'm aware of my bias and exam my feelings toward the songs more strictly when it comes to writing these, because I am aware that some of my favorite movies are also objectively terrible. 

Rant incoming. Feel free to skip it.

Now, that being said, I get to add TWS to my list of groups that I'm starting to be really upset with HYBE for and that's in regards to the runtime. Here's your cookie for guessing it. Well done. Once is a coincidence. Twice is a pattern, and I'm looking at nearly every group or artist under HYBE releasing songs that are two and a half minutes or less in roughly the last eight months. With TxT, Enhypen, Seventeen, and Jin releasing music in the next two months, I'll be very interested to see if HYBE is going to continue to shortchange the fans of their groups by having them all release songs that don't even reach the bare minimum of three minutes. HYBE can say what it wants about the companies being able to make independent decisions, but the odds of all of this being independent are not good, which means we need to look at the common denominator for answers: HYBE.

I'll step back off my soapbox. I apologize for the rant. 

There are sections of this instrumental that remind me so much of If I'm S, Can I Be Your N?, which is delightful for me. It does mean that that my brain is expecting the vocals to go a different direction, but if this is them showing that they've got the same sound, just a little more mature, I like this shift. It's a good, natural progression. Rather than the instrumentals be so soft and light and boyish as has been the case with the title tracks of their previous mini albums, there's a little bit of an edge to these and they're lower as well. But, more than that, I appreciate the electric guitar layered down underneath the other instruments. The "bom bom bom" with the bass after the instrumental rests makes me smile because of how cute and fun I think it is.

Again, there are sections of this song that sound a lot like If I'm S, Can I Be Your N?, which has the benefit of keeping their discography and sound tied back together. The notes they're actually singing seem to be, in general, dropped just a little bit. Kyungmin, for instance, doesn't have nearly the number of high notes that he normally does, and it sounds like Shinyu has a few more lines than he has previously had on their other title tracks. The surpising one here is Hanjin with those low notes. I was not expecting to hear those from him and I'm delighted. Absolutely tickled pink. We're not getting any big vocals, which is concerning because I know what Pledis groups historically are able to do. At least one of their groups members have the ability to belt like the rent is due, and instead of hearing any evidence of that, we're getting "la la la"s instead. Of course, the song isn't long enough to really allow space for something like a bridge or a post-chorus to really allow them to do big vocals, but that has already been covered a few paragraphs previous to this one.

The music video adds more than a whole minute to the song. It's fine.

Gone are the schoolboys navigating first loves and first encounters, but, as expected, we've got a lovely, lovely storyline about navigating those first steps into adulthood. I find it funny that the first one being asked that question is Shinyu, the eldest, who turns, what, twenty-two this year? But, who would be more appropriate than the one who is the eldest? The choreography is as I expect to see with TWS. But most of the music video is imagining what adulthood is like and then dealing with the reality that it's nothing like what you expect. It's also a frame narrative, technically, which delights me.