Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Honestly not sure if it’s the fact that “Welcome To MY World” could be an extension of aespa‘s Epic Seven collab in terms of tone, but it definitely feels like a pre-release in the sense that it comes off like some kind of introduction.
As a standalone pop song, “Welcome To MY World” isn’t great listen as it trudges along at a pace that threatens to put listeners to sleep and has an overall sparseness to it as if the visuals are supposed to fill that gap. That said, for the same reasons it works a lot better if you imagine it as a part of some kind of movie score, as the orchestration gives it a haunting sense of exploration. You know, the kind of shit where the down-to-earth love interest is showing the spoiled protag the realities of the life of plebs or whatever. Like I said, it could be for a video game cut-scene or like one of those League Of Legends collabs, so it kinda fits them in a way.
Unfortunately, all of this is just for the Kwangya lore and not something actually epic, but “Welcome To MY World” is a decent table-setting. If nothing else, it’s not banging and clanging all over the place and aespa’s vocals are allowed to shine a bit. Will that hold for the rest of the album? Probably not based on their history, but there’s always hope that “Hold On Tight” indicated a change for them.
