The House of Orihara

I think, eventually, I'd like to go back and do this for more of Ateez's albums, but I figure I may as well start with their latest release since it's freshest.

Overall, I did enjoy the album, but I don't think it's my favourite in the Golden Hour Series so far. Overall, I do like the songs on the album, to varying degrees, just not to the same degree as previous songs.

Ghost: I like the ethereal, haunting feel of the song and after translating the lyrics, I get the feeling that Ghost is about Sopro and what it was doing to people. This song feels super lore heavy, in that sense and I LOVELOVELOVE the lore. However, I have to admit that I didn't like Hongjoong or Mingi's raps in this song, from a musicality perspective. They didn't feel like they fit the overall flow of the song to me. They felt disjointed. If that was an intentional choice, that's interesting but from a personal preference perspective, it didn't really work for me.

Adrenaline I love the overall distribution of parts across the song for all members. It was definitely nice to see everyone getting some kind of killing part. I love that San was involved in the choreography as well. It's definitely a pump you up track and a lot of fun. The music video makes me so curious about the story. We've clearly jumped universes but from GH Pt.3 to here is a bit of a mystery as to how it came about. I need more! I will say that Hongjoong only opening the song and having no other parts felt strange to me. Not necessarily bad, just noticeable in his absence? The lack of chorus also feels strange to me.

NASA So... this is hands down my least favourite track, and that makes me very sad because I LOVELOVELOVE Rappper Hwa. I was genuinely excited for this track, but there's something about it that just doesn't feel very Ateez. I do love the performance, but the lyrics are kind of rubbing me the wrong way. I'm very much not a fan of artists singing success songs based on money as the marker of success, and that's the vibe these lyrics are giving me. I was drawn to Ateez's music in big part because of the messages in their music and this one doesn't feel like it fits in with those other messages. Ain't nothing Humble and Kindness in this song.

On The Road This is my favourite track on the album, hands down. I am an absolute sucker for Ateez's feel-good songs. I feel like they are an important core in Ateez's music. On The Road is, I think, the most cohesive track on the album. Beautiful lyrics, great musical flow. I could listen to it on repeat forever.

Choose I loved this track when it was released as a single and I'm glad they put it on an album so I can have a physical copy of it instead of living in the dangerous world of only being able to stream it. But... it definitely doesn't feel like it fits the overall flow of the rest of the album. Which isn't the end of the world or anything. Still love the song. Mostly just an observation on the overall album composition.

Overall, I hate to say it but Mingi's raps weren't really hitting for me on this album? At least not like they have in previous songs. I remember Hongjoong saying that he took a step back from producing as heavily in their works and I'm not sure if he was referring to this album but I genuinely feel like his reduced presence in the production shows in this album.

And like... since fanfic is, y'know, protected only if you aren't profiting... The whole idea of asking someone to pay you to illustrate their fanfic is... Weird? And definitely feels like something that might be against ToS?

I have returned to spill thoughts on the newest album because, in the words of George Takei: *Ohhhhhh myyyyyy*

But aside from all the hot n sexy, I'm a sucker for fallen angel/Lucifer themes.

And like... the whole teaser promotions stuff leading up to Lemon Drop was all apple imagery right? William Tell, Snow White etc etc

Then they do the reveal and it's lemons, right? And we're all like.... You tricked us! Okay... Cool.

BUT

The sneaky bastards were like: WAIT THERE'S MORE!

And drop the In Your Fantasy repackage with a hot new song referring to Lucifer and temptation, right?

Which just leads back to the Apple imagery with Garden of Eden references.

Like holy crap there's a lot of referencing here and it's just tickling my mythology and allegory brain.

I'm so in love with their creativity.