THE WORLD EP.2 : OUTLAW

The record

THE WORLD EP.2 : OUTLAW is the ninth mini album ATEEZ released, on 16 June 2023, with six tracks. The title track is ‘BOUNCY (K-HOT CHILLI PEPPERS)’, and the record is the second chapter of the series that began with THE WORLD EP.1 : MOVEMENT.

The album introduction carried by Bugs sets this chapter where “people who have opened their eyes to emotion” decide “to ignore the law and the rules of this world”. The same text sums that choice up as “moving a little more boldly, to make the sound that will lift the darkness”, and puts the phrase “a different kind of spicy you have never felt before” in front of the title track.

Reviews

The music webzine IZM reviewed the title track, ‘BOUNCY’, on its single review pages in June 2023. The writer is Baek Jong-gwon. Having set out the line the two previous records had drawn, he placed the song on it: “‘Bouncy’ holds to that line. It keeps the finish while taking a mood that is lighter and quicker than the record before it, and strengthens the sense of rhythm to add reach.”

He also wrote about what the song’s title and lyric borrow: “the lyric quoting Seo Taiji and Boys’ ‘Come back home’, and the subtitle quoting the name of the punk rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers as though it were inheriting ‘Cyberpunk’ from the last album, are equally successful in taking on a mischievous image.”

Two years later, Yeom Dong-gyo of the same outlet set out the group’s run of singles and put this one inside it: “ATEEZ, who have built a rich discography with the Treasure and The World EPs, have a singles line just as clear — ‘Bouncy (K-hot chilli peppers)’, springy the way its title says, the sleek tropical number ‘Wave’, and ‘Work’, which lodges in the ear.”

Among the tracks

The album introduction describes the title track, ‘BOUNCY (K-HOT CHILLI PEPPERS)’, as building “over a bass line growling low”, and names the “rhythm outside the frame” carried on it as the song’s subject.

The opening track, ‘This World’, continues ‘New World’, the last song on the previous record. The introduction says it asks “can you become a monster to protect something precious?” ‘DJANGO’ is described as “a song that calls to mind desert wind whipped up by ever-changing sound”, and ‘Wake Up’ as carrying “the inner confusion and unease expressed through a sweeping melody”.

Numbers

The album introduction for THE WORLD EP.FIN : WILL, which followed, puts this record’s first-week sales (초동) — album sales counted over the seven days from release — at 1.52 million, and says it reached number two on the Billboard 200 and stayed on that chart for five consecutive weeks.

What came next

The series closes with the second full-length album THE WORLD EP.FIN : WILL, and GOLDEN HOUR : Part.1 opens the next one. The order of the series and the line-up are set out in Who Are ATEEZ?.