Iz*One - Heart*Iz

Release Date: April 1, 2019
Genre: kpop

Certain things needed to happen in order for me to like kpop. I'm positive I'd listened to Iz*One's debut song and I saw the special "Airplane" video they made, but I don't remember making any mental notes. After falling in love with Bloom*Iz and becoming accustomed to their sound, I went backwards to Heart*Iz. I didn't have much expectations going into this album because I still haven't learned any of their names and I think I was resisting because I was already invested in other groups.

Review: Since they had a song that was similarly titled with a Carly Rae Jepsen song, I wanted to hear "Really Like You" first, just to see how they would incorporate that phases and I was surprised that this song was a ballad, and it's an emotional one too. I really like the guitar strums and string section and the melody is just pretty. As I let the album play out to the next track, "Airplane" is just ridiculous. I like how fast pace it is, and hearing them spell out airplane is so infectious, but when they changed the ending so they spelt the word together, I thought that made the song go from cute, to heartwarming.

My favorite track is probably "Up." It's so upbeat and the instrumentals are so bright. I love how the song keeps soaring and Chaewon's high notes during the bridge feels good. Every time they say "haneul wiro" I keep hearing "how do we all" which for me, makes me feel like the song is about togetherness. But those last 20 seconds, the song feels like it shifted to a new gear because it's the same "haneul wiro" but all of them sing at the same time. Translations don't mean much to me, but for this song, the translation is basically "to the sky, let's call each others' names" and I find that to be so beautiful.

The opening track is cute as fuck. My bias, Hitomi gets to sing here and when Minju goes "give it to me" during the 2nd verse, she went hard and I loved her flow. I never get sick of this song and as an opener, it's their best one. Since I heard "Fiesta" first, I felt "Violeta" was the same song, but not as good. It took forever for me to like "Highlight" because it's not catchy, but once I watched their live performance and saw their dance for the chorus, it clicked for me. The song has a dance tempo, but the choreography pauses the action, so I felt that enhances the song.

I consider the last two tracks to be bonus tracks simply because they are Korean versions of their Japanese songs. I do like the cat song because it's really peaceful. 

Tracklist/Scorecard:
1. Hey. Bae. Like it. 10/10
2. Violeta 8/10
3. Highlight 8/10
4. Really Like You 9/10
5. Airplane 10/10
6. Up 10/10
7. Neko ni Naritai (korean version) 8/10
8. Gokigen Sayonara (korean version) 5/10

Summary: On their 2nd EP, I felt that they found their sound by being extra cute and bubbly. Although short, it doesn't fatigue the listeners when songs like "Airplane" and "Up" go into second gear. At least for me, it made me want to repeat. Plus all these songs have been performed live so the dances give the songs new life.

Key Tracks: Hey. Bae. Like it., Airplane, Up
Rating: 9/10