ILLIT made a sneaky Japanese debut with a soundtrack song, though their 2024 mega-hit Magnetic was also omnipresent in Japan. Like fellow HYBE artists TWS and BOYNEXTDOOR, their sound feels tailor-made for J-pop so it’s nice to hear them leaning into that on new single Toki Yo Tomare.
After being somewhat hesitant about ILLIT last year, I fully boarded the train with this June’s Do The Dance. The group functions much better in a frothy, upbeat soundscape with higher tempos and sugary hooks. Thankfully, Toki Yo Tomare builds on this approach. While it misses the addictive French house influence of Do The Dance, its bounding percussion and roller rink ready instrumental serve a similar purpose. The song coasts along these good vibes all the way through, offering a buoyant close to this year’s summer season.
While Toki Yo Tomare‘s melodies are very nice, they err closer to “generic” than the group’s best work. You could easily hear this song delivered by many other girl groups, which dulls its presence just a bit. I would have loved to hear the production lean in a more symphonic direction and the performance take on a quirkier air. But when it comes to uptempo girl group pop, we’re not exactly spoiled for choice at the moment. I’ll gladly take this.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8.25 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
It feels like most of their songs run the risk of being so sweet that it’s almost cloying, but they pull it off so well and so it ends up being addictive for me in the end. I really enjoy the bubbly vibes of this song – definitely more directly ‘jpop’ than kpop groups doing a jpop song, so to speak.
LikeLike
This is one of the few times where a K-Pop group really does J-Pop and not just K-Pop in Japanese langauge. So it has this typical Japan sound, which is cute, but a bit too sugary for me. Illit work best for me with songs like Little Monster or Lucky Girl Syndrome.
On another note @Nick: will you review the Girlset (ex Vcha) debut Commas?
LikeLike
Nick had said on Twitter that he’s not going to review Commas because it’s not k-pop and it’s not good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
and I would agree. We should subtract points like a game health meter ticking down for every time a song asks us to “look at me”.
LikeLiked by 2 people
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) the title
LikeLike
I haven’t been adding to my “helium” playlist in recent years, but if I were then this would slot in nicely.
LikeLiked by 1 person