THE WORLD EP.FIN : WILL

The record

THE WORLD EP.FIN : WILL is the second full-length album ATEEZ released, on 1 December 2023, with twelve tracks. The title track is ‘Crazy Form’, and the record closes the series that ran through THE WORLD EP.1 : MOVEMENT and THE WORLD EP.2 : OUTLAW.

The album introduction carried by Bugs presents the record as “the crystallisation of the energy ATEEZ gathered meeting fans around the world” on the world tour THE FELLOWSHIP : BREAK THE WALL, which ran for two years from October 2022 through Seoul, Japan, North America, Europe, South America and Asia and, by the same text, met 400,000 people. The introduction describes the title track as “a dancehall track built on an Afrobeat rhythm the group had not tried before”. Four unit and solo songs, splitting the eight members into four groupings, sit at the back of the record, and each got a music video a week apart in January 2024.

Reviews

The idol-pop webzine Idology (아이돌로지) reviewed the record on 19 December 2023. The writer is Mano. He starts from how the record is built: “the pleasure of listening at album scale is guaranteed first of all.”

What he gives as the reason is the running order. “It is not only pulling the tension tight all the way through; the pacing, which sometimes lets it slacken, is first-rate,” he wrote, and explained where one interlude sits: “had the fan song ‘Dreamy Day’ — the brightest in mood of the tracks — come straight after and gone on into the unit and solo section, the flow would have turned awkward, but filling that gap with an interlude track (‘Crescent Part.2’) was a shrewd move.”

The music webzine IZM picked the record on its Monthly Pick page in December 2023, in one sentence. Han Seong-hyeon wrote that it is “a tasty, headlong spirit made by blending the typical with the global”.

Billboard put the record on its list of the 25 best K-pop albums of 2023, dated 29 December 2023. The entry begins “Not only is it ATEEZ’s longest album to date at 12 tracks, The World EP.Fin : Will is also the group’s most ambitious—and confident—endeavor”, and says that “listening to ATEEZ albums is akin to embarking on a cinematic journey, and Will is no exception”. The same entry notes that “the album’s tracks traverse highs and lows, as well as a deeper exploration of each member’s individuality with the octet recording album tracks as units or solos for the first time”.

Among the tracks

Mano describes the opening track, ‘WE KNOW’, as a song “where a heavy low vocal and beat stand out”, with ‘Emergency’ taking that momentum on. Billboard calls the same song a “declarative intro”, where the group speaks directly to all enemies and nonbelievers.

Of the title track, Billboard wrote that ‘Crazy Form’ “elevates ATEEZ’s signature fiery energy to new heights, undergoing a production switch-up and culminating in an anthemic march”. The album introduction presents it as “a song that carries the group’s irreplaceable, quick-witted charm”.

Mano separates the colours of the two songs that follow: ‘ARRIBA’ is a song “borrowing the Mexican folk song ‘La Cucaracha’ over an exotic Latin rhythm”, and ‘Silver Light’ one “where a grief-soaked synth sound blinks like city lights”. Of the four unit and solo songs, ‘MATZ’ is Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s, ‘IT′s You’ Yeosang, San and Wooyoung’s, ‘Youth’ Yunho and Mingi’s, and ‘Everything’ Jongho’s; the album introduction says Mingi and Yunho led the writing and composing of ‘Youth’.

Numbers

In that year-end entry Billboard wrote that the record had given the group “their first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 earlier this month”. The album introduction for the next record, GOLDEN HOUR : Part.1, says the same thing and adds that the album reached number two on the UK Official Albums Chart.

What came next

The THE WORLD series closes here, 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?.