[Review] Ateez - Wave

I really need to decide how I format group names (and to some extent song titles) on this blog, it's driving me bonkers arghh. The only two things I know about Ateez are that they did an episode with the Fine Brothers / React channel, and my old dance crew taught a part of "Treasure" at their previous auditions. Anyway here's one of their shiny new title tracks in "Wave." Since I didn't know which song to choose, it came down to a coinflip between this and "Illusion." Let's see if RNG picked the better song.

"Wave" is the stereotypical summer dance track infused with tropical house elements. That first rapper Mingi was doing his best BM impression but without that deep voice it wasn't cutting it. Come to think of it none of the members that did any amount of rapping were any good interesting. The vocals during the prechorus from Yeosang and Seonghwa served as the song's highlight for me. I mean there's nothing particularly wrong with the chorus (especially since they unironically used "hakuna matata") but with all these copycat summer dance songs they're all branches from the same tree, you know?

Speaking of being similar to others, the English usage is pretty heavy and like many songs...none of it really flows. I mean yeah it's hilarious they used "hakuna matata" as the punchline but that's unprompted and as awkward as ever. At least for the MV they're outside? Of course it'd have been utterly ridiculous if their song called "Wave" did not depict any water or beaches but thankfully the folks over at KQ Entertainment is not stupid. The boys are out and about doing fun things and enjoying the limited free time before they have to go back to studio again. As this is a boy group, I have no need to comment on their visuals because I simply do not care.

The truth about "Wave" is that it's your everyday Kpop summer tropical house tune. The vocals are nice, the rapping is mediocre (to be generous), and the music video is bland if but appropriate. Oh and I managed to write this far into the review without talking about the dance. Is that a bad thing? It's not like there were too many shots of the choreography in the video...right? Oh well. "Wave" fails to make a splash on my radar. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go check out "Illusion" to see if that will fare better.