The comeback aespa has been teasing for the last few weeks is finally here.
On 8 July, aespa released their album, Girls, and a music video for the title track of the same name. Fans have been anticipating their comeback since their Coachella performance back in April as they performed the then unreleased track Illusion which was expected to be included in their next album.
With Girls, aespa broke the record for the highest number of stock pre-orders for a female Kpop act. A whopping 1,610,517 copies of the album were pre-ordered. So the hype is definitely there for the SM girl group. The question is if they live up to it with this comeback.
Girls certainly sounds like aespa. Although quite different in the subtle details from their previous hits like Next Level and Savage, you can definitely tell it's an aespa track. The song leans more into rock than anything else they have released so far and is overall a good girl crush track that has great replayability. The vocal delivery - as expected - is top notch from all the members. Even Karina and Giselle who are primarily known as the rappers of the quartet sound heavenly singing here and Giselle’s rap parts are one of the highlights of the track. She is delivering sass and attitude with a great flow throughout.
However, I fear the song isn’t as memorable as their past title tracks. Girls oddly remain in the same energy level throughout and there is no buildup or release whatsoever. Personally, I like their pre-release Illusion a lot more than Girls at-the-moment and I’m wondering if that would have made a better title track. I’m also not the biggest fan of the clangy dance break part. I'm hopeful Girls will grow on me overtime as all aespa title tracks do - especially after watching a few of their stages with full choreo.
The visuals are where Girls blows our minds. Its music video is one of the best ones from this year. Although it seems impossible as the M/V for all their title tracks have been awesome, they’ve outdone themselves with it. The various monochromatic sets look beautiful - I’m especially fond of the red colored scenes. The members sell the action scenes pretty well too. Winter in particular is a natural at wielding her sword. SM has invested a lot in the music video alone and it definitely paid off as even though I’m not big on the track yet, I’ve replayed the music video at least a dozen times. It’s so good!
A special shout out to their costume and styling team as the girls are serving some looks in this music video. It is giving Y2K dystopia and I’m living for it. This is their best styling yet and I can’t wait to see what they perform in at all the music shows.
These were our thoughts on aespa’s Girls. What do you think about this release? Tell us in the comments!
Cover Photo Source: Twitter/aespa_official
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