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Album Review: Fromis_9 – Unlock My World
Release: June 5, 2023
Label: Pledis Entertainment
Distributor: YG Plus
Genre: Dance, electronic, pop
Score: 
You wonder if there’s such a thing as a “model” career progression for an idol group. If there is one, a path that begins with youthful and saccharine bubblegum pop, launches into a period of energetic feel-good singalongs, and then dives into soul-searching and self-affirming anthems would be pretty close to it. What I’ve just described is Fromis_9’s chronology from 2018 to today, and Unlock My World, the group’s first full-length album and its first after the departure of Jang Gyuri and a year-long hiatus, is what seems to open that phase of soul-searching. The album is pretty unabashed about its theme, with the promotional text, song titles, and lyrics repeatedly emphasizing concepts like staying true to yourself, showing people who you really are, and achieving your heart’s dearest desires. It’s also Fromis_9’s most toned-down, brooding album to date. The intent seems to be for these topics to synergize with Fromis_9’s current station in career.
Throughout the album, the identity and discovery theme play out in two broad sub-flavors. The first is the loud-and-proud external proclamation: announcing to the world that you’re proud to be you. The back end of title track “#menow”‘s chorus declares “I wanna see the way things are // I wanna show all of myself”, to a shuffling, descending beat. “Don’t Care” races down a runway of vogue synths in similarly triumphant fashion: “Before I lose it all // I’m gonna love me more // Because it’s all me in the end”. “Wishlist” sings about embracing one’s flaws and not packing oneself up for someone else, while “Prom Night” is more like club night, following the narrator’s passionate solo dance.
These are generally pleasant, but suffer from being noticeably one-note – to the point that certain lines appear almost word-for-word in multiple tracks. The lines “This is who I am, how do you like me” and “This is all me, who cares if I’m a little different” are samples from two different songs, and “Love the way I am, even all the flaws” and “Even all the flaws I’ve hidden, gonna find myself” are from another pair (and it doesn’t take cherry-picking to find these). The “performing” imagery of “#menow” and “Prom Night” overlaps nontrivially, too. For the A&R this is a fine line between making an album’s message cohesive versus making it repetitive, and it seems that they’ve landed too far on the latter side.
Two other issues compound this repetitiveness: for one, many of these lyrics, except perhaps “Prom Night”‘s, don’t really have much distinguishing setting or expressiveness that would help flesh them out. For another, while the musical style is different across the similarly-written tracks, the sounds also don’t stand out. “#menow” is probably the best track of the bunch, its sleek veneer accentuated by energetic bass and lush backing chorus, but the overly simplistic topline keeps it short of excellence. (In fact, Fromis_9 itself has done a much better version of this style in 2020’s “Feel Good”.) As one highlight, “Prom Night”‘s burgeoning arrangement is chock-full of activity and it does get really interesting in the whispering, tiptoeing pre-chorus.
If these tracks formed an EP, it would be a sonically polished but disappointing product. Fortunately for Unlock My World there’s a whole other half, and it’s significantly better. The second sub-flavor of the self-identity theme is the more subdued, take-a-breath kind of introspection, in which both the writers and Fromis_9 (and in several tracks, writers who are Fromis_9) seem to have much greater detail and distinction to explore and express – and also benefit from more imaginative sound-making. Album opener “Attitude” operates like this, with an interesting aviation metaphor adding color to connotative lines that could have fallen flat (“I’m leaving tonight… To an unimaginably far place”), and the cascading synths and dense soundscape as pitch-black as the air that it describes.
“In the Mirror” is perhaps the album’s best song, starting clinically with subterranean bass and telling the story of the lonely stranger in the mirror. The chorus opening up so widely, hitting emotional chords performed longingly by Lee Nakyung and Lee Seoyeon, comes as a surprise but it works well in the self-redemptive narrative. The “Girl in the mirror” lines, cautiously posed twice in the verses, return as triumphant embrace in the outro riding a more vibrant and emotionally charged instrumentation. Apart from the chorus lyric (“No matter who I am”) being a little less impactful than they could have been, it’s hard to imagine how they could nail this one better. In a discography that includes sterling side tracks like “Mulgogi” and “Airplane Mode”, “In the Mirror” surely joins the canon.
One interesting achievement of Unlock My World – and one that I think separates the album – is that the drilling of this one theme through each track changes the framing of its love songs too. “What I Want” is a bold confession about taking initiative to close the gap, but set after the soul-searching mood of this album, it also becomes about the narrator’s growth. “Now I know you are, you are what I want // Now I know what I want” becomes the declaration of someone who no longer feels lost in her feelings. (This one is also well worth the listen for its sound alone, with an exquisite ascent of a chorus peppering addictive melodies and satisfying flow; it has the same liberating energy as Twice’s best work of late.) While not as explicit as this one, the album’s sweeter love tunes can be read to lean that way too.
So that’s the payoff in Fromis_9 and Pledis’s dogged pursuit of the theme: it’s dedicated enough and persuasive enough to define the album and to exert gravity even when it’s not explicit. With this achieved Unlock My World comes to a close, but not with more of the same. “Eye Contact” hearkens back to the Fromis of old, not only in the fan-addressing lyrics penned by the eight members together, but also in a rocking singalong sound that has hints of “Glass Shoes” and “To Heart”. (For listeners who noticed this album’s lack of shouted background vocals outside of “#menow”, the song delivers in droves.)
With a rousing melody and confident march, “Eye Contact” bridges the Fromis of Unlock My Heart with the one we’ve known. If the discovery of identity is what you wanted to talk about, then a reminder of where you came from is not a bad way to end it.
Tracklist (recommended tracks in bold)
- Attitude
Lyrics by Seo Jung-ah; composed by C’SA, Bymore; arranged by C’SA - #menow
Lyrics by Cho Soo-jin; composed by Ryan S. Jhun, Svea Kågemark, Celine Svanbäck, Jeppe London Bilsby, Stally, PATEKO; arranged by Ryan S. Jhun, Jeppe London Bilsby, Stally, PATEKO - Wishlist
Lyrics by Park Ji-won; composed by Lee Beom-hoon, Jang Han-na, Park Jiwon; arranged by Lee Beom-hoon - In the Mirror
Lyrics by Danke, Lee Seuran, Baek Jiheon; composed by Christian Fast, Malin Johansson, Johannes Willinder; arranged by Johannes Willinder - Don’t Care
Lyrics by Lee Seuran; composed by Scott Russell Stoddart, Paulina “Pau” Cerrilla, Avenue 52 - Prom Night
Lyrics by Cho Yoon-kyung, Baek Jiheon; composed by C’SA, Ish Hokhmah; arranged by Ish Hokhmah - Bring It On
Lyrics by No Joo-hwan, Moa “Cazzi Opeia” Carlebecker; composed by Bang Si-hyuk, Slow Rabbit, Moa “Cazzi Opeia” Carlebecker; arranged by Bang Si-hyuk, Slow Rabbit - What I Want
Lyrics by Danke; composed by Justin Reinstein, Anna Timgren; arranged by Justin Reinstein - My Night Routine
Lyrics by Lee Seuran; composed by Park Gi-tae, Elum, Lee Seoyeon, Lee Nakyung; arranged by Park Gi-tae - 눈맞춤 (Eye Contact)
Lyrics by Lee Saerom, Song Hayoung, Park Jiwon, Roh Jisun, Lee Seoyeon, Lee Chaeyoung, Lee Nakyung, Baek Jiheon; composed by Nmore, Shannon, Song Hayoung; arranged by Nmore
Album cover images from Bugs Music. Lyric translations by author (jungbae@hellokpop.com).
Spotify link: Unlock My World
Related writing: Fromis_9 – Love Bomb [250 Greatest Idol Group Songs of All Time 2020 Feature]
