REVIVE+: Glamor and Grit in IVE’s Second Full-Length Album
Starship Entertainment’s chart-topping girl-group IVE returns yet again with REVIVE+, a full-length album of bold proportions, that seeks to move the girls from their signature “I” (as in, IVE) to the power of us. The album, spanning twelve tracks, including individual member solos, offers up a diversity of sounds: from the title track “BLACKHOLE” which serves the signature glitz and powerhouse glamor reminiscent of hits “LOVE DIVE” or “I AM,” to the club beats of “Hush.”
TRACKLIST
“BLACKHOLE”
“BANG BANG”
“Hush”
“Stuck In Your Head”
“Fireworks”
“HOT COFFEE”
“8 (JANG WONYOUNG Solo)”
“Odd (GAEUL Solo)”
“Super ICY (LEESEO Solo)”
“Unreal (LIZ Solo)”
“In Your Heart (REI Solo)”
“Force (AN YUJIN Solo)”
IVE kicked off REVIVE+ promotions with pre-release single “BANG BANG.” Pairing pounding club bass with a twang cowboy-shootout-style guitar riff, the song offers a performance-forward lead-in to the rest of the album. The song is predicated on its hook, echoing “bang bang” in a layered, almost dreamlike tone over its pulsing, bass-driven instrumental. It is exactly what it sets out to be: an accelerative girl-power dance track.
Title track “BLACKHOLE” slots itself securely into IVE’s signature, bold anthemic sound. The girls pair high glamor fashion: pink fluffy goats, long leather matrix coats, sequins and pearls, against urban grit, strobing high-fashion lights, and metallic minimalist runway backgrounds. Conceptually, IVE offers the ultimate focal point, not any environment or backdrop.
“BLACKHOLE” is off to the races from the first measure, immediately beginning to climb to its pre-chorus: “Now, Look at me now” before belting vocals soar over the repeating chorus-refrain “La-La-La-Love Flame / Wi-Wi-Win it my way / End the long wait / Finally as ourselves.” Finally, the chorus explodes again with its synth arpeggios and all six members in sync belting. IVE has mastered their formula: shimmery synth pop, powerhouse belts, layered refrains, dreamy bridges, breakneck crescendos, and “BLACKHOLE” is emblematic of their five years at the top of the game. It works, and it’s satisfying in a way that more edge-forward recent releases “Attitude” and “XOXZ” strayed away from. As the lead of their second full-length album, “BLACKHOLE” matches their “I to US” evolution well, metamorphic of their older sounds, developing its own glitzy magnetism.
When it comes to B-sides, percussive dance-track “Hush” uses the vocal percussiveness of the echoing Hush as its instrumental base, introducing high fuzzy near over-processed vocals, strings, and other clever musical elements to produce a charming listen of a song that’s both catchy, if a bit (intentionally) blurry. “Stuck in Your Head” leans into IVE’s lighthearted, girlish side, their trademark contribution to the easy-listening, minimal-pop track sound, on trend for a girl group of today’s standards, but not offering much more than pleasant niceties.
IVE is never one to stray too far from an anthem, so of course the album sets course to “Fireworks.” Made for inspirational quotes or motivational speeches, “Fireworks” utilizes their trademark pumping bassline/explosive vocal combo to evoke its own namesake, lighting up the dark with a flash. Unlike its title track predecessors, “Fireworks” features compelling guitar solos and a mid-track rap breakdown that shakes the listener back to the moment. Certainly a song built to be performed live, flashing lights, pyrotechnics, and confetti raining down as the lyrics shine: “You and I were shining in the dark.”
A personal stand-out B-side, “HOT COFFEE,” true to its name, leaves no room to rest, self-admittedly. The structure of the song is so compelling, and each catchy element builds into a final product just delights in itself. Cleverly layered vocals, dreamy pre-chorus intros, a catchy chorus up against 8-bit synths and reworked samples. The song delivers exactly what it should: a caffeine rush right to the brain.
The members take turns showcasing their individual strengths and colors in their six solo tracks that round out the album, with five out of six members (Wonyoung, Gaeul, Leeseo, Liz, and Rei) each contributing to the lyrical composition of their respective solo tracks. “8” punches its way forward, with Wonyoung rapping in a confident, vogue-esque punchy house song, “Five, Six, Seven, I ate.” she says, with a cheeky smile you can hear from the vocals alone. If a bit chanty, the song oozes pure confidence in a way that only industry-darling Wonyoung could offer. Easing up, Gaeul’s solo (and my personal favorite of the individual solo tracks) relishes the journey as it moves from acoustic-forward chords to a shimmering low-tempo introspective pop-song, poetic in its exploration of imperfection, and the most evocative lyricism across the album: “A silhouette like a mirage of subtle light [...] the end of my gaze is always odd.”
In the same vein of pulsating club beats, an ongoing thread across the album, “Super ICY” is the most on the nose. Leeseo’s processed vocals hover above a snaking bassline and snare beat until airy adlibs top off the post-chorus: that's it. A song both simple in its construction but confident in its projection, “Super ICY” would be right at home at the turntables, primed for that inevitable beatdrop.
Liz’s track “Unreal” showcases pop-forward melodies and retro synths, with those charming spoken Sabrina Carpenter-esque adlibs woven in between: “yeah you!” she jives. Liz’s strong vocal performance soars across the chorus in this uplifting, pop-girl track. “In Your Heart,” with its 8-Bit instrumentals and Rei’s glitching hyperpop vocals, delivers what is certainly the most distinct, genre-diverging track on the album. An Yujin’s “Force” concludes both the solo sequence and the full album, pushing Yujin’s charisma and vocal chops in a girl power pop-song eager to hypnotize.
IVE’s sound continues, secure in the knowledge of the group’s identity, and REVIVE+ delivers on its promise of broadening its reach across all twelve of its tracks. The album delegates its two distinct parts surgically, ending abruptly after the solo tracks, yet nevertheless delivers a full-length album faithful to IVE’s sound and image, with soaring synth-pop, frenetic basslines, and solid, soaring vocals. While certain tracks may not innovate beyond the constraints of their respective trend-forward niches (“Stuck In Your Head’s” minimalist-pop cliches are the first to mind), and still others toe the line of overprocessed, the final product is satisfying, a full-length album with an underlying overall high caliber across twelve tracks. This is no small feat. In this way, REVIVE+ does exactly what any second full album should: revive, and then some.