Song Review:: EXO: REVERXE- Crown

• Release date: 2026 January 19

• Album tracklist: Crown, Back It Up, Crazy, Suffocate, Moonlight Shadows, Back Pocket, Touch & Go, Flatline, I'm Home

• Album runtime: 28 minutes

 My first comeback with EXO coinciding with their first comeback is a delightful happenstance, and I'm excited to be here with the EXO-Ls for this. I'm so beyond frustrated with SM over this whole situation, but until SM decides to be completely nonsensical, I'm going to treat this as a simple hiatus for them from the group. They'll come back. And the average is over three minutes, so I am so, so happy.

One of the more interesting things about the instrumental is that there are sirens going on through almost the entire thing, but they’re subtle enough that the song isn’t taken over by them and you’re unlikely to be jump-scared by them while you’re driving. But they’re there and they add a strong flavor to the song, which is otherwise majority a beat and rhythm, rather than having much of a melody attached to the song there. The siren makes up the majority of what would be perceived as a melody. But! I'm kind of okay with it because there's a dance break.

Having very recently heard Baekhyun’s voice with my own two ears, it’s obvious that it’s missing from this song. I’m not overly familiar with EXO songs in general, although I do have a few I really like, but hearing the blend of the available voices, while this is very good, the song is missing ingredients to finish rounding out the song, namely our missing members CBX. Now, that being said, I’m also a huge fan of the way the line “sirens in the night” happens and then the sirens in the background start up again. That’s good songwriting. I’m a little bit disappointed that we don’t get as much of their vibrato as I know they have, but at the same time, we’ve got plentiful harmonies and layerings, and some absolutely gorgeous runs that I am delighted to be hearing. I’m hearing a lot of strains of Monster in Crown, which I am hardly going to complain about. Oh, they’re showing off one of the things that marks EXO as EXO? How dare they! This is of course sarcasm.

I'm going to be listening to the rest of the album after I finish this because that's seven new songs to dig through and find even more songs to love.

I cannot tell you how amused I am that Kai has the red and he is not fire. Anyone else reminded of Love Shot? There are some fantastic points to this choreography, pun only slightly intended, that I can't wait to dig into in two years when this is eligible to go in as a Greatest Hits post. Now, I'm not super with their lore other than knowing they have powers and like many of SM's groups, it has something to do with space, but from what I can tell, this one seems to be involved with them remembering who/what they are and what they do? Or they're regaining their powers and relearning how to use them again? There's definitely an imprisonment vibe to it, and I think the house they're in is the house from I'm Home, which is a cool connection, and I'm pleased about the continuity.