Fresh off their victory on the newest season of Road To Kingdom, CRAVITY are striking while the iron is hot with a new single album. It’s uncommon to promote in the month of December, but I’m happy to hear new music during a traditionally slow period. Now Or Never makes for a suitable follow-up to February’s rock-infused Love Or Die, though it’s patchier than its predecessor.
At its best, Now Or Never plays as a gritty rock anthem. The moments when it goes full bore are quite thrilling, from the pounding chorus to the cathartic, chanted refrain. In between these highlights, the song struggles to maintain momentum. It has a particularly ineffective second verse breakdown, plunging us into half-time tempo right as the track should be building energy. This occurs again during the bridge, with a fake-out structure that pulls back when I want it to punch. The mixing is also a bit mushy during the song’s final chorus. It would have been nice to hear a clear vocal cut through the murk rather than soft layering that tends to drain individual personality from the arrangement.
That’s a lot of complaining about a song that I actually enjoy. As a whole, Now Or Never is a solid example of this bold pop sound. The pre-chorus is an instant earworm and the rock-meets-synth production reminds me a bit of Golden Child’s (superior) Feel Me from last year. But when a song’s this close to being great, it makes me want to storm the production studio and tweak the few things that would have vaulted it to another level.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 8.25 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
ABSOLUTE BANGER + ABSOLUTE CINEMA + BEAUTIFUL LYRICS + SHARP CHOREO = SOTM (SONG OF THE MILLENNIUM)
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The rock sound is in full swing this year 😄! My top 50 list this year will be filled with rock sounds. Artists like Waker, DKB, Xikers, Vahn, and so on showed their all. Now it’s Cravity’s turn
Rating: 8.75 (8, 9, 9, 9)
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I have my problems with Now or Never too, the trap brack is unfortunate, but by the final chorus I just forget about them. It may be my rose-coloured glasses but I really like this song for now. The B-Sides are great too, Horizon is up there as one of the Cravity’s best imo.
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trap brack god, trap break*
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I love this Title and the Bsides. Very similar at first listen, but I won’t complain because it is a sound that I enjoy!
I’ve been thinking about CRAVITY these days, especially after reading your STARSHIP grading post. You appropriately described their journey as “having reached a natural peak” and I can’t help but wonder why? They have been releasing consistently good music for the past 2 -3 years, but it seems like their popularity does not change. I’m surprised about the fact that they only have 225K listeners on Spotify. They have a couple of million followers on Instagram, but in my opinion, they should be bigger. I understand when smaller companies’ groups go through this because it seems brutally difficult to compete, but STARSHIP is experienced and big enough to assess and act to avoid what I think is a premature peak for CRAVITY.
Road to Kingdom may be Starship’s effort, but I wonder if it’s too late, you know, with a new Kpop generation emerging in the past year. I hope not!!
PS: I could write the same rant about Woolim’s DRIPPIN🫤
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Honestly I’ve been trying to write up an explanation on why Cravity just haven’t grown internationally successful and I have no reason.
My thesis was that Starship’s plan in the beginning was to focus on the popularity of individual members and even that out, meaning the music could be fuck all, and then by Gas Pedal realise it wasn’t working, but I checked Cravity’s album sales; and that’s somewhat the case (Liberty did see a drop in sales but remember most fans pre-order before the release, thus not hearing the song. New Wave gained 50,000 copies more, meaning their sound change in 2022 was commercially a good thing) but it doesn’t explain why people don’t talk about them more. The best thing I’ve got is that boygroup popularity right now is staggered, and unless you’ve debuted recently you’re most likely not gonna gain anymore fans since boygroups aren’t ‘in’ right now (I wonder if there’s a good reason why).
This doesn’t mean Cravity’s fandom is small though. Internationally it is but people underestimate the size of Luvities in Korea and Japan. They’re not big but a pretty solid group. Other fans would disagree but the fact that Cravity’s popularity hasn’t decreased from the last few comebacks is a good sign when Starship could’ve easily put them in the dungeon in 2022. I think Allen said in a Cravity Park episode that they were worried they’d be dropped each year. So even if they should be more popular, I’m just happy Cravity is still active.
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it’s pretty but not beautiful. This is the kind of song that should eliminate the rap sections and put that energy toward actually getting the melody off the ground.
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Cravity is so much fun. I love them so much. They never miss.
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