Review Summary: An emotional roller coaster that can't find its way.
Again EXO brings a complete album, and finally the nine members are reunited (yes, Lay appears for four photo shoots and to play a "featuring" role in a damn EXO album). This band may be the one of the most interesting projects when you are looking for experimentation or a different approach in K-pop, because they certainly don't always sound like your typical summer "bop", and with Don't Mess Up My Tempo they raise the flag of the electro/R&B-strangers again, although with problems along the way.
In Don't Mess Up My Tempo (the fifth studio album) we can find again a great variety of themes, typical already within the band, but in this project they venture into unknown terrain, exploring from sounds of the eighties electro-pop to the less frenetic Latin pop vibes, going through genres that already accustom as the R&B or current pop with hip-hop influences.
As I mentioned, the album is an amalgam of different ideas, bringing together from past EXO projects or even samples, to create really effective combinations. An example of this experimental nature is “Tempo”, a song with different sections that play with the viewer, mixing the R&B with synthesizers, the most versatile and dynamic rap possible, a slow-trap chorus and an a capella as surprising as well executed.
I could spend fifteen minutes talking about the really cool things about this track, but the album is not only one bop, managing to include other jewels like “Gravity”, being an electro-pop / retro wave pump with funky touches and varied verses (we see even that funk sometimes accentuated with a great bass that leaves us wanting more).
Other really remarkable tracks would be the R&B-pop ballad “24/7”, with Lo-fi / Synth pop elements, which brings a pretty good lyric content (albeit it is not the lost treasure); or “Bad Dream”, another somewhat exotic ballad of uptempo rhythm with quite slight electronic touches that the more you advance the more it surprises, even managing to introduce a Smooth Guitar in the pre-chorus and the outro of the song that reminds a lot of the Tropical Chill Vibes (but without ukuleles and acoustic covers).
During the album we are also fan-serviced as EXO does not forget its past themes (although it could also be debated if it is a simple lack of imagination), using samples of other songs such as “Gravity” using those of “Power”, or the great similarity between “Sign” and “Transformer” and “Oh La La La” and “Thunder”.
On the other hand, in some themes we also recognize segments similar to other artists' tracks, such as the two first transitions of the chorus to the verses in “Tempo”, very similar to “Around the World” by Daft Punk.
While the repetition is sometimes seen in many other artists, or the fall in trendy sounds are very frequent, EXO manages to give a great twist to these, reaffirming in this album that when they play with music they are able to create great pieces that, although not all of them will go down in history, they can stand out within their industry, because if something is good in this album is precisely how each producer or the mix of several of them manages to create that each track has its essence and personality, in addition to seeing something of experimentation, mixing genres, various instruments or even playing with the limits of EXO versatility. Again, the title track is the one that speaks for the album, because this musical journey is precisely positive about how unpredictable it becomes in many occasions, but not because of its great variety of styles, but because of the originality that most songs are handled. Well, none of the R&B songs sound the same, nor do those that use a wide variety of electronic elements. On the one hand this is a negative point as I will mention later, but on the other it is a great effort that is rewarded with songs that individually have a great quality mostly, 50% of the album being remarkable, another 30% being acceptable, and finally having a 20% that really can't match all the remaining work.
As a positive point that few people usually mention would put the outros of some songs. Normally, this is an aspect in which people do not usually notice when evaluate the creativity of a song, but I would like to mention the good work done in “Sign”, “Bad Dream”, and “Oasis” or even in the phonetic variation of “Gravity”. It is really something that can go unnoticed, but that gives greater dynamism and variety to the album itself, making each final something to want to hear, thus hooking the listener (and with quality as well in this case).
Already described the songs with some critical touch I have to say that the album tries to experiment, bringing a versatility that other groups of the pop industry do not achieve, including from the most electro and retro to R&B ballads uptempo, but still not enough. The first reprehensible aspect would say that it is about the very inclusion of so many styles. While in some we managed to see bonding links such as those elements of R&B or electro (mostly summarized in “Tempo”), in other tracks such as “Oh La La La” we found nothing related to the album itself, falling into a slightly good bet but that is misplaced.
Still this complaint is the slightest, because of the ten songs (“Tempo” in its Mandarin version obviously stays out) only two songs I see them left over (“Oasis” and “Oh La La La”). They are interesting but they fail to connect well in the album.
And if we talk about connection we have to talk about the distribution of the album, because it is a problem that did not happened in its previous release (The War), ending in a roller coaster aimlessly.
Tempo should have been the second song, and repeating The War's formula should have put “Oh La La La” as an introductory song.
The excess of ballads in the middle part of the album affects negatively, which makes very dynamic parts such as the beginning of the album and others quite quiet, which would be good if it were not for the repetitiveness of “With You”, “24/7” and “Bad Dream” (although they are not equal, the repetition of genres in an album that seems to boast of its variety can be boring), where they go so often that bore a bit. To alleviate this, they could have placed “Sign” or “Oasis” among the most R&B section, relieving so much "emotion" and achieving greater variety without breaking the harmony of the album's tempo.
Now we go with the lyrics. This album is what we can call as pseudo monothematic. While it always talks about love, it does it from different perspectives; maybe it is a painful separation, an attempt to leave him/her behind or even the resolution of an error.
Obviously, it becomes repetitive after a while, but at least it is to value the good use of the gravity metaphor in "Gravity" or the great writing in "24/7" (even "Tempo" does not have a bad lyrics, although It is not something astonishing).
Standard but with some amazing twists trying to escape the classic "Baby, I love you, but I don't know if I should say it."
As for the performance of each member, the distribution of the lines has been fairly balanced and both rappers and vocalists have played an excellent role. Albeit the variety of genres has been somewhat strange, it has allowed every member of EXO to show off, having from high notes and great harmonies like “Tempo” or “With You” to soft melodies like “Oh La La La”, proving the vocal versatility of each member (while rappers are not far behind, especially highlighting “Tempo”, “Sign” and “Gravity”).
In conclusion, Don't Mess Up My Tempo is one more EXO album. As I said, the major problem is not knowing how to find a link that connects the songs, making it feel like a scattered album and a collection of random songs. Even so, we find a versatile project with good songs, a spectacular performance, and “Tempo”, which is the summary of the album but without that disconnection and the freaking breathtaking a capella part.
