Wanna be your star! ASTRO has come back with their new album titled GATEWAY. This new album features six new tracks, including the title track “Knock.” GATEWAY follows the release of ASTRO’s fourth-anniversary track titled “One&Only” released in February. GATEWAY also marks the return of Moonbin to promotions after a hiatus late last year.

The Song

Co-written by members Rocky and Jinjin, “Knock” is a vocal-heavy dance track that relies musically on mostly piano and various types of percussion layered throughout the song. The vocal parts are a stark contrast to the raps. While all the vocal members sing over the same flowy piano melodies with simple percussion during their parts, the rappers take a different approach. Rocky’s bars are done over a simple percussion with a quiet piano melody that lies low; JinJin’s, whose bars are part of the lead up into the chorus, are done over a heavier layered percussion which creates a stark contrast with his voice. As the song begins to wind down however, the song makes a few interesting stylistic choices. For the last 30 seconds or so of the song, Moonbin, Eunwoo, and Sanha sing the chorus parts, MJ shows off his vocals with some breathtaking adlibs while JinJin raps over it creating a very dynamic ending before everyone falls away to Eunwoo finishing the song with the line, “Oh Oh Oh”. Another interesting style choice is how the vocals are arranged towards the end, in almost a call and response format. For a title track, this definitely makes a bold impression for the new and mature sounding ASTRO. 

The Music Video

The music video follows a similar aesthetic as seen in their previous release “Blue Flame.” The color scheme is fairly similar, blue hues that balance out the light and shadow through the entire music video. The members have three different costumes, the first being the powder blue and white outfits seen in group choreography shots in the first part of the song, the next is the tan and white outfits that are seen in glimpses in the member’s individual shots and in the final shot of the music video, and finally the final midnight blue, black, and white outfits. With the theme of this album being time travel, it was no surprise to see the music video setting being inside a giant clock. Throughout the music video, shots of a swinging pendulum appear that throw shadows on the member’s faces. The main dance scenes are shot in a large circular space that could be representative of a clock face. In some scenes, members are walking up large winding staircases that eventually shatter into pieces that could also be representative of the gears in a clock. After the staircases (gears) fall apart, a lot of planet and space imagery begins to appear heavily throughout the rest of the music video, adding much-needed splashes of color. Moonbin receives a lot of screen time to the delight of many with his dance solo done in front of a large moon which flickers and changes throughout the song. The music video ends simply with a dance sequence beneath planets suspended throughout the space. 

Final Thoughts

Overall, the song and music video take a predictable story motif like time travel and add a new spin that makes it refreshing and interesting to watch. With the enticing visuals in the music video and earworm of a chorus, there is no doubt ASTRO should see a second win with “Knock.” 

Check out “Knock” below!