Attacca

The record

Attacca is SEVENTEEN’s ninth mini album, released on 22 October 2021 with seven tracks. The title track is ‘Rock with you’. It is the third chapter of the 2021 project “Power of ‘Love’”, four months after Your Choice.

The album introduction on Bugs explains that attacca is the musical direction to play on into the next movement without pause, and says the record likens that to a feeling for someone that cannot be stopped. The same text describes ‘Rock with you’ as a rock-based song built on hard synths, guitars and a two-step rhythm, lists one song each from the performance, vocal and hip-hop units, and notes that the closing ‘2 MINUS 1’ — the group’s first English-language song, by Joshua and Vernon — was added as a digital-only track.

Reviews

NME’s Angela Patricia Suacillo reviewed the record four days after release. She wrote that “‘Attacca’ feels less like a release designed to redefine SEVENTEEN’s sound and more like a promise of what the group could be in the future – and that future is coming, be sure of that”, and closed: “The road to true musical reinvention is one fraught with hits and misses, but on ‘Attacca’ SEVENTEEN still manage to push the envelope and take their music in disparate directions while producing a sleek, and appealing mini-album that mostly plays to their strengths.”

IZM’s Jeong Su-min opened his review with the album’s name: “On < Attacca >, which means play on to the next page of the score, SEVENTEEN carry forward ‘Power of love’, the theme running through every record they have released this year.” Of how the album holds together he wrote that “as they built a wide spectrum through many attempts, this is another moment of widening the field”.

Among the tracks

Of the title track IZM wrote that “‘Rock with you’ blends the label’s writing with SEVENTEEN’s existing style”, and that “the electric guitar riff, bright as a sprint, and the loose vocals that deliberately leave room to breathe with an audience, reflect the team’s cheerful, improvised performance”. The same piece described the run from ‘To you’ through the title track to ‘Crush’ as “a tight weave joined by the airiness particular to SEVENTEEN”.

The track NME put first among the others is also ‘Crush’. The review calls it the strongest of the B-sides, an 808-driven hip-hop and R&B track that does not beat around the bush either lyrically or in its sound. It treats the opening ‘To you’ as a smooth, ethereal synth-pop track grounded by a steady rhythm guitar beat, and the vocal unit’s ‘Imperfect love’ as an intimate power ballad carrying “the most emotionally-charged performance on the mini-album”. Of the hip-hop unit’s ‘I can’t run away’ it wrote that the four members forgo their rapid-fire verses for an acoustic ballad, and that the song comes closest to showing a new side of them.

Numbers

The Hankook Ilbo, citing the Hanteo Chart, reported first-week sales of 1,335,862 copies, and said SEVENTEEN were the only act to record two consecutive million-selling first weeks in 2021. By the same report the album took first place on Hanteo’s monthly album chart for October with 1,766,524 copies, and the title track ‘Rock with you’ won on Mnet’s M Countdown, KBS2’s Music Bank and MBC M and MBC every1’s Show! Champion.

By Billboard’s own chart history the album entered the Billboard 200 dated 6 November 2021 at number 13, which the Hankook Ilbo reported as the group’s best placing on that chart at the time.