How to do pop-punk right 101 — a woodz review

Cho seungyoun a.k.a the one and only, woodz has moved the masses yet AGAIN with another spectacular mini album. Are we even surprised that he's given us yet another flawless song list and adding to his no-skip discography agenda, giving absolutely no room for disappointment? He's the main slayer and will stay that way until the day he stops making music and I KNOW of it.

leading on from Waiting, which portrayed the feelings of a lover almost in denial of being separated from someone he loved and essentially "waiting" for her to come back to him, I hate you presents him in a brighter part of his life as he's accepted that he "doesn't need her love" and that she'll definitely be "fine without him". As the lyrics state, he says that he could live well without her, which is a perfect contrast to his almost crazed mental state in Waiting.

Enough about the theme and the concept he wanted to portray, I'm just incredibly glad at how he's rapidly implementing the actual pop-punk soundscape, which he first established with bump bump back in 2020 (I feel like the sense of freedom he feels in this song can be linked back to Bump Bump as well) Yes, his voice gels with almost everything he will and can do, but especially with pop-punk, woodz can pull it off. The chorus of the song is incredibly anthemic and very memorable to sing along to. It's bright and sunny nature also adds to this effect and holistically makes it a successful title track. I really hope he keeps this momentum up for this future releases because I absolutely loved it.

The MV uses a blue-yellow colour palette probably portraying the warmth of youthful freedom and the cool tones representing the state of his feelings towards his ex-lover. I loved the MV with the different cutscenes and the variety of sets obviously representing different emotions and feelings (I can go on and on trying to theorise it LMFAO) I also very much enjoyed the live band-like aspect of the MV, making it feel like an alt-rock concert. Very special effect. In terms of b-sides, I saved every single song to my playlist (I might have a problem if I didn't, at this point) and my absolute favourites were Hope to be like you, Better and Better and Hijack! While Hope to be like you is a sad-happy interswitch rainy-day track, better and better is the perfect surge sun-shining-on-my-face levitating soundtrack. I don't usually like darker pop-rock adjacent songs but Hijack was an absolute hit for me, with the rap sections and the electric guitar instrumental meshing in perfectly.

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MY OBJECTIVE TAKE:

Hook: 10/10

Replayability: 9.6/10

Production: 10/10

Structure: 9.75/10

B-Sides: 9.5/10

MY SUBJECTIVE TAKE [OVERALL]:

9.8/10

B-SIDE OF THE DAY: