Song Review:: The KingDom: the flower of the moon- Last Flower

• Release date: 2025 September 23

• Album tracklist: Last Flower, Festival, Forget, Last Flower - Instrumental

• Album runtime: 14 minutes

 First of all, they've had an unfortunate little run the last little bit and I'm still upset that one of their members was removed from the group for having a job, but I was worried that this group would be facing a disbandment. I'm tentatively hopeful that I won't be going through one with them for at least a little bit because we're getting this. If you're unfamiliar with this group, they're a concept group where each of the members represents a different king, of sorts, who basically have to unite to fight off the growing darkness. Genuinely, so cool. They don't have a title track I don't love (although my favorite is either Long Live The King or COUP D'ETAT) (links go to the music videos), and, fun fact, the spines of the history series of their albums form an image when lined up together. Cool, huh? Also, this is almost a four minute song. Oh, I love them. And one of them posts on Weverse every morning at midnight KST to say "사랑해" and it's so sweet. If he can't do it at midnight, he usually posts it "in advance" and that's so sweet. Also, shout out to Dann, my very talented dude, for having writing and producing credits on two of the three songs, and to Mujin, for having writing and producing credits on the third.

We are so back. Not that I didn't like their last one last year, but the traditional instruments that they typically use were very much missed. And because they included the instrumental for this, I get to bask in this. Have I already added the title track to my list of songs I love for the year? Yes. Based solely on the instrumental because, and I am not joking, this is such a soundtrack kind of song that it's not even upsetting my dog, who historically hates music. He does tolerate soundtracks though, more than anything else. This is why we need long songs. It runs the gambit from energetic to poignant to powerful and hits just about everything in between. There is a story being told just here in the instrumental, and I could not be happier. Can you tell?

Huge vocalizations in this song. It has literally everything I want in a song, my key three things. Harmonization. Vibrato (not as much as I'd like, but I caught some, so I'm counting it). Belts. This is a traditional piece of music, and it only has one brief line of rapping, which I did miss it a little (a surprise to me as well), but it also wouldn't make sense with how traditional everything else about the song is. Those gorgeous vocalizations at the beginning are just haunting. Oh, I can't wait for the music video.

Forget is a more typical ballad, and Festival is what you're looking for if you're wanting more of a normal K-Pop sound. Just as an FYI.

Okay, we have a performance video, which is fine. Am I a little sad? A little. But that just means I know exactly what we're getting, and if I was a cartoon, I'd have heart eyes and little floating hearts over this choreography. The costuming. The performance. Fan dancing, you guys! Fan dancing!