It’s been a while since I’ve done an album review, not a lot of major girl group releases so far this year, but I have a feeling we’ll be getting a lot in the next few months. To start off the return of album reviews, we get my personal favorite group, WJSN, with Unnatural!
The Video
Wow, this video looks good, everything is extremely crisp and clear, and the styling is absurdly on point. Major downside to this is that it was edited by a Hollywood editor apparently, because it cuts every second or two almost without fail across the entire 3 minute runtime of the song. It’s really a shame because everything does look so great, and the decisions made in post-production totally limited one’s ability to take in any of it at all. That said, stylists were on point as always, everybody looks incredible throughout, basically not a single misstep in any of the decisions made in that department, and the members really own the sexy quiet confidence of the video.
There isn’t much in the way of plot or story, and none of the shots, despite looking great, have much to talk about. The one thing that I think is interesting is having the cameras within the view of the camera from which we are seeing, there’s a pair of instances of this right before Exy’s “hey, come on” lines to start the quiet section of the song. I’m assuming this is intentional, but it’s really odd to me, and mostly just makes the video look even more like a photoshoot than the borderline slideshow editing already had.
Rating: 8/10
Looks fantastic, the members and stylists deserve all the credit in the world, lighting department was having a great shoot too, but post-production was just a flop for me, a few more long shots (which is 2 seconds in this case) would have an extremely positive effect, or at least less choppy feeling edits that draw my attention away.
The Songs
Unnatural- Absolute fire song, top 5 WJSN title tracks, probably in fourth right now (ManelyKpop official ranking here). This has room to move up though, or maybe a little down depending on staying power. I absolutely love the pre-chorus and the build up to it, which are fantastic. The chorus itself is ridiculously catchy too, and the Exy rap is top tier as well.
Last Dance- This song doesn’t quite click for me, I’m fairly neutral to the verses, but the chorus really loses me, whereas if it clicked better I may have liked this song and thought the verses were more fitting. Good rap section though, and some interesting writing in general, just not my style. Notably, I said that about Pantomime in Neverland and it’s one of my favorite songs from that album now.
Super Moon- After the pre-chorus the chorus feels surprising, but it’s lovely, and so very pleasant to listen to. Speaking of the pre-chorus, it feels very independent from the rest of the song, but it works really well. Excellent b-side, and a solid pace change from the more high-power songs that came before.
New Me- This is a slower groovier take on what a more classically WJSN sounding song would be, and it’s a top tier b-side. Also Yeoreum gets the best part of the song, if she keeps getting sections like that everybody will want 500 Days of Summer. This is a top tier WJSN song, and a great riff on their earlier sound, it’s very familiar, but also very fresh, New Me is a very accurate title.
YALLA- Where I was critical of post-production in the video, the producers on this song were doing some really cool things, really interesting beats. This song is a pretty cool listen, the choices made when putting it together were really cool. These cooler, weirder beats always produce some fantastic rap sections too, Exy’s voice fits them well.
Rewind- Absolutely beautiful, WJSN have a great bunch of vocalists for a song like this one, they really do it well. Is this a song I’m going to listen to regularly? No, it doesn’t have that same fun casual listening to that some of their other slow songs have. Do I respect the heck out of it? Absolutely, and when I do listen to it, I’ll enjoy it every single time.
Rating: 9.5/10
I take into account both the overall state of my ratings across every review, but specifically my ratings on a group by group basis. And this is definitely a better album almost across the board for me when compared to Neverland, which in retrospect, I probably overvalued at a 9, but to keep my ratings consistent, this has to be higher. Honestly though, context aside, and not just as a Ujung, this album is a consistent banger, and 9.5 is probably just right, not quite As You Wish levels for me yet, but a lot of depth and width to enjoy.