Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Pledis Entertainment‘s new boy group TWS popped onto my radar at the start of the year with their pleasant and promising pre-release in “Oh Mymy”. Things seemed to be on a similar path with their debut, “Plot Twist“, but the main M. Night Shyamalan moment here is the lack of one.
On their pre-debut track, I mentioned enjoying everything about both it and TWS except the chorus, so I guess for their debut they just decided to mostly forgo that part altogether (technically it’s the build section, I think). Once again, everything seemed to be heading in the right direction, with the light boyhood-pop mood being setup well, sorta providing early SHINee vibes. But the thing about the successful songs in that mode is they usually come with some kind of indelible hook or melody in the chorus that just grows on you over time, which this obviously lacks by design. The instrumental in its place sorta has this GFRIEND scale to it, but again, missing the key element that made those songs great too.
Still, I can see the merits of the group. They’ve delivered a fun overall vibe and the members seem capable enough. I famously did not like SEVENTEEN‘s debut but do like their music now, and too much importance is probably put on first impressions nowadays anyway (allow rookies to be embarrassing!). So the building blocks are there, Pledis just need to give TWS stuff to actually do in the key moments, especially when they want to operate in a genre built around hooks/melodies.
