Chill Kill

The record

Chill Kill is Red Velvet’s third studio album, released on 13 November 2023 with ten tracks. The title song is ‘Chill Kill’. It is their first full-length record since Perfect Velvet in 2017, six years earlier.

The album introduction on Bugs says the name Chill Kill is a compound the label coined for “an event or a presence that breaks the quiet”. The same text describes the title song as a pop dance track in which bold bass movement, string lines, dreamy synths and bell sounds are set against each other irregularly, and calls its double edge — a life once quiet turned incomplete, still reaching for someone and still singing hope — a bright tragedy. KENZIE and the Swedish producing team Moonshine wrote it together.

Reviews

NME’s Tanu I. Raj reviewed the record four days after release. She wrote that “with their third studio album, Red Velvet have returned to what they do best – spinning chilling tales with flawless harmonies at the centre”, and that “the vivid storytelling on the album is, in fact, the best part”.

IZM’s Son Min-hyeon placed the title song in the group’s own line. He wrote that “the title song ‘Chill kill’ is a fine fusion of red and velvet that follows on from ‘Peek-A-Boo’ and ‘Psycho’”, and that “once the cool opening, led by a bass line from the hip-hop subgenre drill, gives off an attractive darkness, the turn that runs from the pre-chorus through a short rap into the refrain lends it a well-made depth”. He added that the song “is full of life, like watching a short musical”.

Of the record as a whole the same piece wrote that it “proves once again the team’s consistency and the sourcing of good songs that supports it”, and that “amid a tide in which easy-listening pop melodies are eating into K-pop, the dignity of a veteran act that has kept its identity and still attempted change stands firm”. The sentence he closes on is: “It is a good case of choosing and concentrating.”

Among the tracks

‘Underwater’ is the song three outlets put forward together. NME wrote that “elsewhere, on ‘Underwater’ – a strong contender for the best track on the album – we are baptised in an ocean of beats, complex harmonies and evocative depictions of being swept away by deep, uncharted waters”. Billboard called it “one of Red Velvet’s most satisfyingly sultry moments”, and in the 127-song retrospective NME published for the group’s tenth anniversary on 1 August 2024, Tássia Assis wrote: “As deep as the ocean, ‘Underwater’ is a testament to Red Velvet’s abilities to improve and become even more bewitching than they already were.”

Of the second track, ‘Knock Knock (Who’s There?)’, NME wrote that it “opens with bone-chilling harmonies by the group, layered over what appears to be a sample of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’”. The album introduction on Bugs describes it as a game of hide and seek inside a dream, begun by a knock at a door.

‘Nightmare’ is the song IZM and NME pick out together. IZM wrote that “‘Nightmare’, built on a similar contrast of light and dark, brings out a flavour of its own with a waltz-like rhythm, so the musical finish of these two songs, which draw on what is particular to the team, satisfies”. NME wrote that “between orchestral arrangements and retro swing rhythms, songs like ‘Nightmare’ resemble slices of time carved out of a Victorian gothic horror novel”.

Of ‘One Kiss’ and ‘Iced Coffee’ NME wrote that “the all-encompassing treatment continues on ‘Iced Coffee’ and ‘One Kiss’, given how atmospheric and cinematic they are”. The retrospective calls ‘One Kiss’ “another highlight of ‘Chill Kill’”, writing that “the jazz inspirations behind ‘One Kiss’ fit perfectly with Red Velvet’s vocal highs and lows, making it a timeless classic”.

Numbers

On 29 December 2023 Billboard placed the album 22nd in its selection of the year’s 25 K-pop albums. The entry wrote that “the opening duo of ‘Chill Kill’ and ‘Knock Knock (Who’s There?)’ sees the quintet blend bright melodies with dark, brooding pop themes”, and called ‘Will I Ever See You Again’ “a Technicolor dream woven with dancing synths”.

Paste had put it 12th in its 20 K-pop albums of the year on 21 December. David Opie wrote that “the lead single is a perfect synthesis of their signature ‘red’ and ‘velvet,’ switching effortlessly between dark, gothic verses and a more upbeat chorus”, and that “‘Knock, Knock,’ ‘One Kiss’ and ‘Nightmare’ delve into the macabre with chilling storytelling that sparks something dark and even dangerous out of the group’s usual flawless harmonies”.

Afterwards

Cosmic followed seven months later, timed to the group’s tenth anniversary.