KATSEYE – WILD EP Review: An Identity Crisis Disguised as Pop
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Yes, KATSEYE has returned after having some global hit songs; this time they have released a 5-track EP just to sustain their artistic discography. I don’t know why they haven’t released a full-length studio album, despite having a years-long career already. To gain mainstream Gen Z virality, the group has deliberately traded storytelling lyricism for ‘memorable” hooks that go viral on social media and dominate charts every time, but artistic depth is nowhere to be found in their music.
The project represents the current “hit- or-miss” economy, which only prioritizes aneurysmal hooks over narrative arcs, just to feed the 15-second TikTok virality. Well, these hooks may create a bunch of trends on social media, but as a real music fan, I felt like this project is a direct middle finger to the album culture we admired for decades. How can you imagine a well-established global girl group that hasn’t released a full-length studio album, despite having multiple tracks dominating charts across the world? They have released some EPs over the past years, but they are all just an attempt to sustain their discography status; isn’t that a sign of the destruction of album culture?
Listening to this EP was like having an ear rape for me, because it never ever felt like a usual EP experience throughout the runtime. The EP is a product of a boardroom’s data-mining, not a rehearsal space’s friction. By valuing a viral chorus over a bridge or a meaningful verse, HYBE x Geffen have created an aseptic vacuum where a musical statement should be. The result is a project that feels less like a debut and more like a post-mortem on the very concept of group identity.
The production strategy here is an exercise in hitmaker-heavy overkill that borders on the pathological. By employing a rotating door of producers—including Bang, Frants, and David Wilson—without the steadying hand of a single sonic auteur, the EP suffers from a terminal lack of identity. It is a fragmented mosaic where the grout is more visible than the tiles, a sonic bricolage that reveals nothing of the six women at its center.
Meanwhile, the songwriting here is like frustration at its peak for me; the EP is full of unbridled lyricism, which is absolutely garbage concept-wise. Almost every track here is packed up with a spurious hook and rancid lyricism.
The opener “PINKY UP” is a hollow exercise in over -processing that attempts to set a flirtatious tone through sheer attrition; its transient appeal succumbs to the heat death of its own saturation the moment the programmed drums stop. The algorithmic slop is very clear here because the hook only features “PINKY UP” in repetition, which will dominate the social media trend; meanwhile, the verses here indicate some emotional lore. Now, you can imagine how goofy the song is.
But the next track, “Animal,” actually saved the EP from total embarrassment, in my opinion. This is not a masterpiece song to me, but at least I’d call it the ultimate “lone survivor” for this bizarre hook-based EP. The song has some kinda ornate structure and a sleek rhythm. Not capping, the hook is still stuck in my ear after listening to it; I appreciate that. The difference here is the “Sheeran Factor”—the organic songwriting of Ed Sheeran and Johnny McDaid provides a structural integrity that the other tracks lack. Produced by Omer Fedi and Blake Slatkin, “Animal” benefits from plucky acoustic guitar textures and tasteful synth programming that offer a necessary reprieve from the corporate sleekness of the EP’s bookends.
Now, the third track “Hootie Frutti” is where I felt my ear getting assaulted on this EP. This track can only be described as a goofy hyperpop lobotomy. It choreographs a state of performative hedonism so rigid it borders on the grotesque, utilizing cringe-inducing food-imagery double entendres that feel more like search engine optimization than genuine desire. Honestly, the hook caused a brutal haze in my hearing after listening to it.
The fourth track “Bel Air” offers the corporate sleekness of a 2013 Charli XCX discard, which is unsurprising given the involvement of Patrik Berger and Noonie Bao. Its spacious mix serves only to highlight the emptiness of the corporate vision—a wide, expensive room with no one inside. The project “closes” with “That Way,” a track that attempts to manufacture ersatz intimacy through a superficial grab at emotional depth. This choreographed emotionality is specifically exploitative when viewed against the group’s current instability, namely the mental health hiatuses of members Manon and Sophia. The label attempts to commodify a narrative of “heartbreak” for profit while the actual members are sidelined for actual trauma, demanding a closeness from the listener that the music has done nothing to earn.
Ultimately, my overall thoughts on this EP are that KATSEYE presented an identity crisis veiled as pop curation with WILD. If Pop is moving towards this culture, I’m really sorry for feeling frustrated with this EP, but as an album-oriented listener, it was an ultimate blow to my admiration. Throughout the project, the group’s diverse backgrounds are smoothed over by a production machine that values functional clarity over cultural or individual texture. We are left with a collection of sounds that prioritize a spreadsheet’s logic over a human’s vulnerability.
[Rating: 1/10]
- Favorite Tracks: Animal
- Least Favorite Tracks: PINKY UP, Hootie Frutti, Bel Air, That Way
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