After a burst of pre-releases last year leading to their first album, ARTMS have been relatively quiet. They released digital single Burn in early April, which also appears on their new Club Icarus. Now, we have that album’s title track to officially kick off promotions. So far, I’ve appreciated ARTMS’s artistic, genre-blending approach but haven’t quite found the right song to hook me. Icarus shares similar frustrations. It’s ambitious in some ways, yet lacks several of the core characteristics I look for in a great, fully fleshed out track.
One thing I can confidently say is that ARTMS have not played things safe. Icarus lends itself to visual presentation, which is key to K-pop, but doesn’t offer the kind of friendly song structure and massive payoffs many listeners might expect. This prickly nature is to its credit, yet keeps me from fully embracing the track as a highlight I’d rush back to on a regular basis. During my first listen of Icarus‘s first verse, I was almost convinced ARTMS were about to deliver “song of the year” material. The ornate production, slowly building from piano to strings to a lush orchestral sound, promised something very exciting to come.
Icarus blossoms from here, but the chorus isn’t quite working for me. Rather than a knockout melody, the song swerves into a softer refrain of extended notes. While very pretty, this structure hijacks the energy and keeps Icarus stuck in one gear when it could blossom into something quite stunning. This sort of happens as additional chants join the fray toward the end, but even these touches feel a bit disparate. Icarus is still a nice piece of performance art. It just could have been absolutely legendary with a few key ingredients added.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
After their debut, I have realised that they do not make music for me (and I like reggae rock, so I should be fine with some first time weirdness). Other than some gems in their Dall album, everything has sounded disjointed and for some reason their vocals don’t go along which I don’t understand how that could happen, they all sound great individually (could be the mix?).
Also doesn’t help that some songs sound like those 2010’s youtube outro “ambient but edm” sounds.. Wish the members the best.
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the song is nice but I just don’t get why they would name their album Club Icarus and not have a club song as a title track 😓
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sorry for the word but i think that their creative produce (jaden jeong) is exactly into this kind of ruined orgasm lol
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I want whatever track that drumline in the Jinsoul or the synthwave in the Heejin teasers belong to.
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I agree with you but at the end of the day they’re primarily singers. They’re releasing music first. They should keep in mind that how they name a track will affect listener expectations and interpretations. It was very easy to just name the album Icarus
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i hate this website so much, I meant to reply to the person below you. I’m very sorry
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I think the name “Club Icarus” has more to do with the story/concept than the genre of music.
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I agree with you but at the end of the day they’re primarily singers. They’re releasing music first. They should keep in mind that how they name a track will affect listener expectations and interpretations. It was very easy to just name the album Icarus
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absolutely incredible mv. artms are truly unlike any of their contemporaries.
the teasers made me expect a quite different sounding song due to the electronic and glitchy soundeffects used in those, but this is nice as well. i really appreciate that artms and loona rarely play it safe and are always expanding the boundaries of what kpop can be.
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This is a great song on its own, but if it built to a climax for a powerful chorus (something Dreamcatcher coded would work well for this song) and then added some of the chorus elements in this song serving as a post-chorus, I think this would hit really hard.
As is, 8,9,8,8 = 8.25
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I was thinking Dreamcatcher too
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ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL, reminds me of LOONA 1/3 with how orchestral it sounds. And that MV is just so good. Maybe they could’ve built up to a chorus whose melody is just grander, maybe something like SSFWL by Oh My Girl, but at the same time I just feel like this is the type of stuff that got me into LOONA in the first place and just seeing them still continue just makes me so happy. I also feel like there’s a repackaged album coming with the electronic sound they have teased throughout their promotion? AAAAA this just makes me so happy ❤ ❤
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I live for this song.
Never really vibed with Loona, but ARTMS has been amazing.
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Both versions of the MV are genuinely great pieces of filmmaking but yeah.
The second verse and chorus could use a little something, if not extra, just different. Replacing the orchestra with a pretty tame drum and bass beat was at best a lateral move and didn’t feel nearly as cohesive with the piano melody. If you’re going to go for the switch up go big. Bring back that random breakbeat in the middle of Birth.
12/10 MV, 8/10 song
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The song’s okay, but I was hoping for a club song. By the way, that cinematic video is amazing!
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Words can’t express how much I love the cinematic MV! I’ll definitely watch it again many times. The song is really good, I enjoy it a lot! This was my favorite release today. 🙂
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I honestly love the song. I get what you are saying, this could easily have a big chorus but I love what we have here anyway. Great melody and instrumentals. It gets really gorgeous towards the end with the repeated background vocals. Also love the constant piano. This is something different, something creative. They should use this blueprint again for a big chorus song.
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After watching the cinematic mv and hearing the song a few times, reading the lyrics, and making connections to Loona’s concepts and trajectory as a group (past and present), I fell in love with it. I’m really proud of them for this comeback! It is SOTY material for me.
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The good perhaps great: ambitious, drama, being its own song. Different in a good way. A song that deserves a lyrical dance form.
The meh: where is the emotional energy pointed? There are all these high high wisps of vocals, but I don’t know what they mean, where are they going. Is it angst, is it joy, is it ethereal, is it wistful, is it .. what, what is it? The ladies are juuust holding onto those notes too, so there isn’t a lot of wiggle room for their to be much else in those notes but that breathy whisper.
My humble opinion, I would go listen to how the OhMyGirl and Dreamcatcher people capture those high high notes for emotional impact, and copy it. I would start by adding bass and middle voice to contrast and ground it, the Forestella trick. Might also try having the melody being sung as a harmonic lower with the high high notes on the backing tracks.
That said, I think it is pretty good.
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An example of supporting the high notes by grounding in the low notes, for those here whom somehow I have not introduced to Forestella.
Live live, you can hear every bump in the room.
I want to point out in particular how the instrumental supports Kang Hyung Ho on those high high notes with a high synth wash behind him, something like the “Chorale #3” button on the synth, and he just lays his falsetto right on top oh so tenuously.
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They felt into their own esthetic trap on this. Being fancy should not be a goal in itself – though the song sounds pretty classic in the end. The piano and harmonies in general are awful. The MV looks too discarnated to be moving.
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I really had the replay the song multiple times because I was so hype during the first verse, but I’m not feeling it by the end. The chorus feels more like a transition than like an actual refrain. I feel like their voices haven’t had much character on their artms tracks as they did on their loona songs. I also hate the chant mentioning Phoenix wings because it feels like it’s encroaching on the Icarus concept and the chant itself just doesn’t fit very nicely though it does help the song feel like it’s going somewhere.
i love the music video, I love the story and the visuals. While I liked all the symbolism in loona (because you had numerous ways to reference members), it didn’t actually feel like there was a story, just lore.
they just gotta get the music together, they have ambition, let’s get a reliable cook in that kitchen to make the hooks hooky
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I most often listen to the song first before reading your review. And oh my god- did my ears perk up during the first 30 seconds. One of the most intricate and beautiful kpop intros I have heard in a LONG time.
But then how disappointing isn’t even 3 minutes long and never builds up to what the intro promises.
It is still quite a good song, I would say and the production of it (especially being so string heavy) stands out. My hope is that they develop this sound more because if they do, I believe they can live up to the potential.
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Just listened to it again, without the visuals this time; it sounded a lot longer in the club MV. Here, the stunted climax stands out very clearly. The song builds towards a rebirth, but the vocals feel very subdued (apart from Kim Lip’s) and I just wish the girls would sing OUT more.
Haseul’s ‘I just wanna be unchained’, at least the second time around, would benefit from a less airy approach. That one line of hers, right after Jinsoul’s, in the ‘reborn like a phoenix wing’ section, feels like she’s speedwalking a sprint race (does that make any sense…?).
This overly-airy style of singing forces vocalists to give about 60% of the energy and emotion that’s actually required (I blame Jo Yuri – she’s wonderful, but her “Express Moon” and “Lemon Black Tea” are painful examples of a pretty voice giving hardly any emotion because of this light, soft style that just leaves the voice sounding rather fragile). Heejin delves into this too, but Haseul, despite her lovely vocal colour, is the main offender. It worked, for me at least, in “Virtual Angel” due to the overactive production. But here, it falls very flat. In a concept that requires them to emote, I hope ARTMS can break into flight and deliver.
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