Song Review:: RIIZE: ODYSSEY- Fly Up

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  • Release date: 2025 May 19
  • Album tracklist: Odyssey, Bag Bad Back, Ember to Solar, Fly Up, Show Me Love, Passage, Midnight Mirage, The End of the Day, Inside My Love, Another Life
  • Album runtime: 29 minutes

 I've been putting this off because I'm still so deeply angry with SM over their handling of the situation, and I don't think I'd be nearly this angry if they'd just dropped him from the group rather than the bait and switch they pulled. Just dropping him, that's what SM does. Fine. Whatever. But announcing his return and then almost immediately going "Just kidding!", it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me feel so bad for the group and the fans, and him most of all. Anyway, this is their first full album, which normally would be something to celebrate. Whoo. Congrats. More enthusiasm for the wins though! I'm putting this review on Underage Protocol.

I'm so annoyed by this song because it's so stinking good.

The instrumentals are rather understated, most strongly consisting of an acoustic guitar and maybe an organ? It's a full-blown festival song that could actually be performed at some indie festival. There's nothing over complicated with the instruments, although the semi-regular but also slightly unpredictable breaks in sound create a fantastic underscore for the vocals. Fly Up is vocals first, which is something I appreciate a lot. 

Vocally, this feels like such a musical-type song that basically from the first burst of "fly up!", I was instantly enamored. If I was on The Voice, I'd have hit that button immediately. The number of playlists I'd be adding this to if I wasn't so angry with SM. I should have expected this, really, given that I'd picked up RIIZE as one of my 2023 baby groups when I'd first gotten into kpop, and they were my first from debut group. I already liked them. I've liked them the entire time. But this is just so within my personal wheelhouse of what I like that I just want to add it to probably six playlists. Or more. We've got big choral booms. We've got fun. We've got a little bit of the equivalent of vocal jazz hands. We've got some piercing high notes and some vocal fry, so there's basically the full range here.

RIIZE still reminds me so much of a fifth gen version of SHINee. Well, again, we have a full festival or celebration to the music video, so it fits really well in terms of the music. There's less of a storyline than I'd like, and it's certainly more of a Vibes and Visuals music video, but at the same time, there's enough going on that even though it is what it is, it's not restlessness inducing.



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