Song Review:: IVE: IVE SECRET- XOXZ

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  • Release date: 2025 August 25

  • Album tracklist: XOXZ; Wild Bird; Dear, My Feelings; GOTCHA (Baddest Eros); 비삑 (♥️beats); Midnight Kiss

  • Album runtime: 17 minutes

 There are two songs that are reasonable lengths on this. That's it. I feel like I should be grateful that any of them are over three minutes, but I don't understand why I should have to accept crumbs when other than those two reasonably lengthed, not a single one is over 2:45. Sigh. As a side note, I was actually rather impressed with them at KCon, and not just because I thought they exhibited good professionalism with the mic collision and loss incident.

I'm actually pretty pleased with this instrumental, but there is an asterisk to that statement. It would have been really easy to have this song go fully the route of the milquetoast, and I think there may still be some residual from that trend within the song, but there's enough of a bite that the sound has moved on from the trend. Which I appreciate, hence why I'm pleased. It's not as textured as I'd like, but given circumstances, I will take it considering how ludicrously short the song is. The beginning also reminds me of Ice on my Teeth by ATEEZ a little bit, which I don't think is a bad thing.

The chorus could be worse. The entire thing could be the sing-song chanting. We also get some shout-chanting, which is not my favorite thing. I'm being teased with displays of strong vocals, which is just frustrating. They're never the focal point of the song and they're usually buried in background vocalizations, which almost makes me want to ask what the point of having them like that is, except I also recognize that if I didn't have them, I'd be feeling a lot worse about the song, which isn't one that I'd necessarily skip, but it's also not one that I'll likely deliberately listen to after today. 

It's a little bit of a dreamscape going on with this music video, heavy on the symbolism and a little lighter on the plot than I'd like. That being said, it's got the foundational bits of what I look for in music videos, so it's perfectly satisfactory. Also, they all look very good. The visuals are on point. 

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