Before making her official comeback next week, Yena has pre-released the album’s final track Wicked Love alongside a dance-heavy music video. The song is a hard swerve from the bubbly pop that’s characterized most of her solo discography so far.
I’ll never complain about getting extra material, but Wicked Love doesn’t excite me about the direction of this upcoming comeback. The distorted instrumental has its charms but needs to pick up the pace. I don’t know when this dirge-like tempo became so popular for “dark” K-pop songs. It makes for a nice contrast to Yena’s lighter-toned vocals and she performs the song well. I just wish the song didn’t feel so constrained. Without many standout melodies, Wicked Love tends to fade into the background for me.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.5 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
i’m more baffled by the album/title track??? (not sure which one, don’t care enough to search it up again) being named hate rodrigo
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Who is this person, and what have they done with my Yena?
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I think people go for the music box sound for “darker” songs to be subversive, but it’s only subversion the first few times it’s done before it just becomes the way things are done.
This is better than her last track, at least.
I have a theory that every post-IzOne girl is good until the third release, where they fall off hard. It happened to Yuri, it happened to Yena, it happened to Eunbi. I didn’t like Chaeyeon’s first two songs and she’s yet to release a third, so we’ll see if she’s the reverse of this rule.
In any case, as uninspired as this song is, if the title track is better, it’ll be promising for the rest of the girls.
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personally disagree with eunbi! i really loved underwater as a big tropical inspired pop song, felt really high energy and chungha-esque which is always a good thing in my eyes 😀 (but yeahhh yuri and yena’s latest releases missed the mark a lot for me)
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Y’all are insane. The song is great. Really superb if I must say. It’s alluring and just naturally pleasing to hear. I love it all.
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Reminded me of pinkfantasy (like a b side if they ever got to do a full album) or seulgi’s debut. I wouldn’t skip it if it came on at the right time
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Kinda wish she stuck with the old sound. It’s still relatively harder to find and she had a few great songs when she was going down that avenue.
I think since our (USA) culture is much more focused on “who you are?” And “being relatable” it causes artists to change lanes less frequently. Sometimes kpop performers just feel like the delivery method of a song rather than being the one who owns it. I find it ironic cause this seems to be more apparent as kpop continues to cater to Western audiences. Granted there are exceptions on both sides of the world
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It’s starting to feel like the IZ*ONE solos are slotting in to their early aughts equivalents of Britney, Christina, early Beyonce, Avril, etc. Even from different agencies, it’s like they are giving us the different variation of pop girls: the not so innocent pop girl, dirty pop girl, classic vocal pop girl, etc. So many different archetypes for what was essentially not very different music at all. Yena reminds me of Avril… more or less presenting the same sort of music as her peers but somehow “made different” just because it was presented that way visually and through marketing. Yena sort of falls into this boat for me along with US singers like Olivia Rodrigo. It’s not new or even that special. It’s not awful, and you might not skip the song, but man, do you feel like you’ve heard it done 8000 times whether it’s in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform, tank top and tie, or Y2K mixed Lolita skirts with leggings. It’s sort of funny, because the former member that is truly striking me as the most unique sonically is Lee Chaeyeon, and I did NOT see that one coming. For Yena, I think what strikes me the most off about this song is how serious it seems to want to be taken. Yena has felt her strongest to me so far on tongue-in-cheek type tracks like Lxxk to You when she embraces a more 2020s version of early Paramore.
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Word. What you said.
I am also baffled why a lot of kpop wants to sound like old sounds, re-tread old trends. What happened to taking inspiration from the sounds around us and recrafting into something that is new and fresh?
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I thought Love War was quite mid, but I am digging this one. A touch of Paradise Lost but with some nice added guitar crunch in the chorus.
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