Song Review:: ZEROBASEONE: NEVER SAY NEVER- ICONIK

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  • Release date: 2025 September 01

  • Album tracklist: ICONIK, SLAM DUNK, Lovesick Game, Goosebumps, Dumb, NOW OR NEVER (Korean ver.), EXTRA, Long Way Back, Star Eyes, I KNow U Know

  • Album runtime: 32 minutes

 It feels like Slam Dunk came out absolutely ages ago, but I guess it only came out the end of July. Which, again, to be fair, feels like it was absolutely ages ago. Time is a soup. We have an excellent run time on this album, with an average of over three minutes per song, which is impressive because 40% of the songs are under three minutes and one of them is barely two-and-a-half (I'm really looking forward to that one, though, because it's not a title track and I'm very curious about its title). And shout out to the four-minute song!

The pre-release was energetic and sporty. This one is smooth and a little noir. It's not full noir, but if they were wearing suspenders and fedoras, doing whatever else, it would make a lot of sense. I'm also reminded a little bit of TOMORROW X TOGETHER s recent releases as well as some ASTRO songs, but if you've noticed that I haven't actually said anything specific about the instrumentals yet, that would be because I'm having a hard time actually listening to the instrumentals. I don't know how the producer/composer did it, but they managed to make a song which has some interesting things happening in the background, and then supporting the vocals so well that those interesting things get faded into the background. Knowing that I put heavier weight on the vocals than the instrumentals, because the groups and artists are singers, I'm not counting that as a bad thing, It's just a little funny that they are so present, but simultaneously take such a back seat to the vocals. 

Y'all, we get both vocal layering and harmonizations. We've got belts. We've got brief, brief touches of vibrato. If we got stronger sounding vibrato, that would be all three things that I look for. As it is, I'll count the touches as a partial, so it's got 2 1/2 things. We've got a range of vocal tones. I'd have liked more rapping, but that's basically only because I expect K-Pop to include both singing and rapping. We're coming up on the last few releases ZEROBASEONE will have, unless they decide to renew with WakeOne, and this is a pretty decent showcase of their abilities if they need a demonstration as soloists. 

Every time I see a Roomba, I think of Colonel Stabby. Which is also a little funny considering this is a space science fiction themed music video. Also, it looks like Jiwoong is getting a little more screentime, which is as he deserves because he is surprisingly charismatic. There is a bit of a storyline here, which is nice. I appreciate that as always. They could have done some really cool things with a predominately storyline music video, but showing off the choreography and the visuals is good too. 



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