Song Review: WOODZ – Human Extinction | The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion

WOODZ’s enormous success with Drowning came at an interesting time, when he was on hiatus due to military conscription and couldn’t immediately capitalize upon the track’s unlikely chart rise. Since returning, he’s released several new songs but nothing has yet recaptured Drowning‘s fortunes. Now, he’s back with his first full album — a sprawling seventeen-track work.

“Human Extinction” is quite an eye-catching title for a K-pop track and the song itself doesn’t extend many olive branches to those casual fans who may have discovered his work through Drowning. To WOODZ’s credit, he’s clearly not pulling his punches in search of another megahit. Human Extinction reminds me of something you’d hear on an early Muse album. With this comparison in mind, I wish the mixing had given more precedence to the vocal. WOODZ is (intentionally) buried in his own track, his voice a haunting texture running just beneath the blistering rock instrumental. It’s a curious choice, especially for a title track.

This approach makes Human Extinction more of an object of admiration than a song I’d actively put on a playlist. I love the guitar line that follows each chorus and the driving energy that frames the entire track, but the melodies aren’t strong enough to pull me in — especially given the distant feeling of the vocal performance. Still, this is one of the more interesting pieces of music delivered by a mainstream artist this year.

Hooks	7
Production	8
Longevity	8
Bias	7
RATING	7.5

Grade: C

6 thoughts on “Song Review: WOODZ – Human Extinction”

See, for me, it is the guitar hook that is distracting. Its the nth attempt at a guitarist lifting something from a Bach invention or Pachebel Canon, and it tries very hard but just doesn’t work. … It’s closer to a wonky version of Pachebel Canon, but lacking the grace and joy of that song. It just plunks along one note on the beat every beat.

I happen to know that melody line well since I have listened to Phantom Regiment’s “Harmonic Journey” more times than I will ever admit to, both 2021 and 2003. (I mean a lot.) The guitar hook resembles the opening here. And The Turn starting at 1:30. And The Final Turn starting at 9:38.

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Muse were the first thing that came to my mind too upon listening to this; I would have enjoyed a Muse track that sounded like that, and I enjoyed this one too!

As for the somewhat recessed vocal, that’s pretty normal for a rock song where the guitar melody and the vocal melody are equally important and in juxtaposition with each other. If anything it gives the song more rock music cred, especially compared to a lot of “rock” songs by K-pop artists that I tend to think of as “pop music with guitars”. (Heejin’s ‘sAvioR’ from a few months ago was another track that part of why I appreciated it a lot was precisely because it maintained a similarly balanced mix between the vocals and guitars.)

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What a fucking cool music video.
I can’t quite give a verdict on the song yet but I appreciate that he’s trying something different here than before. The previous prerelease tracks, as I mentioned on this blog, were too close to his previous material to get me excited.

I’ve only just hit play on the album but he is trying out some interesting things with vocal distortion and drum n bass in the opening tracks, and I quite like it. It feels like “Drowning” has given him a blank check to do some very ambitious things.

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matchaman says:

March 5, 2026 at 12:46 pm

Additional thought: “stray” reminds me so much of “killing in the name of” that I thought it might even be a sample, but I guess not.
I am curious about the lyrical content. It’s not too dissimilar from what he did on the b-side “who knows” I guess, but it feels much more RATM whereas that track was more Muse.
I assume it’s not “some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.”

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