Song Review:: ATEEZ: Ashes to Light: Ash {Japanese}

• Release date: 2025 September 16

• Album tracklist: Ash, 12 Midnight, Tippy Toes, FACE, Crescendo, NOT OKAY, Days, Birthday, Forevermore

• Album runtime: 31 minutes

 I'm fully aware that this is in Japanese, but historically, I have really enjoyed their Japanese releases, sometimes more than their Korean title tracks. And I'm doing this in an order where I am feeling happy because Seventeen just keeps hitting me where it hurts today. I figure that this song is also going to be quite sad, which is fine because my mood is melancholy and it's appropriate. And if it isn't, well, all the better. There is no downside here. This is also a chonky album, with nine songs and multiple songs over four minutes. One of them is even almost five minutes long. Thank you, Hongjoong and Eden. 

Apparently I just really like songs entitled "FACE" because that? That is my jam. I'm in love. And I already loved Not Okay even though I didn't do a review for it. That one is good. As is Days, but for a very different reason.

There's quite the eeriness to the song. It doesn't have any big chokeholds of sound, but it also does a very good job of staying out of the way of the vocals, which is something that I'm always listening for. Most of the instrumental is taken up by the beat, but we do get some brief flickers of a melody, which is also something I appreciate. We get a couple of spots where the instrumental gets softer, but, again, there's nothing big about it. It's quite the understatement of an instrumental. It's nice, but it just doesn't wow me. Which is fine.

Vocally, however, this is quite nice. We don't have the same lovely low notes that we got at the beginning of the summer, but we get sharp, smooth rapping from Hongjoong and a different tone that we don't often get from Mingi. I joked once that Mingi has one speed for his raps, and that's full speed ahead. This time, he's doing the melodic rapping that almost sounds like singing but that I absolutely adore when I hear. He does go a little bit harder towards the end of his section, but that's fine. Am I also a little bit in love with Yunho going lower than he normally does? Yes. But you know who else gets to go a little lower than we normally get to hear from him? Jongho. It's nice. The ending has a lot of bits that I traditionally like a lot, so that's fun. Also, we get vibrato from multiple sources, and as we can guess, I'm happy.

Their Japanese releases are all so sad. Loving all the support from the various fandoms in the comments though. I love seeing that. Anyway, while I really love the amount of ash in the music video, as expected given the title, the amount of white clothing caused me some distress, which would also be appropriate given the metaphor of the ash staining everything.  I think I need a new subcategory of music video for the vibes and visuals type that are overladen with symbolism and metaphors. Like, the confessional at the top of the mountain? Hello?