Last month, Stray Kids made a start to their upcoming Clé: Levanter comeback with the release of Double Knot. The second pre-release single and official comeback was scheduled for November 9th and 25th, respectively. However, due to the unexpected departure of Woojin from the group, the release of both parts of the comeback was postponed. Their comeback is not been rescheduled for 9th of December, which gives times for the group to replant their new tracks in preparation for an 8-man lineup. Today, we see the release of Astronaut, the second pre-release single expected on their upcoming mini-album.

Astronaut is probably their most generic and standard track yet. That is not a bad thing, though. I still had a kick-ass time listening to the track. There is an infusion of energy in this generic form of EDM that really makes you think of good times. Actually, it makes you want to have a good time. But while the instrumental was typical, their vocal work and rapping delivery had the very important job of not making the track feel that way as a whole. And I think they successfully nailed it. The vocals were quite smooth, adding a nice contrasting to the standard EDM we got. The rapping was rather dynamic. I liked the melody they brought in via the rap sequences. It also brought in character to the song, which made it even more appealing. Overall, I thought Astronaut was a great pre-release single. Though it makes me wonder. With two very different tracks (Double Knot and Astronaut), how will the upcoming album pan out?

Eagle-eyed fans noticed that there were nine members in the music video, which is definitely a treat for fans. Though for the most part, Woojin was edited out of the music video and I wouldn’t be surprised if some scenes were reshot. As part of the Clé series, you know Astronaut is somehow connected to rest of the video. Hyunjin is the main character, as suggested by the ending of Side Effects. We also see a glimpse of the vehicle that the members rode in in Side Effects, which shocked Hyunjin for a moment (it looked like a prequel, but that scene seems to suggest otherwise). Bangchan and I.N are also now seen as important figures in the story, shown in this music video. We also get an additional suggestion that this series is somehow linked to District 9 (which I pointed out in Side Effects) based on their white clothing at the end.  Other than that, I am not too sure about the ‘storyline’ of the video. Theories would be nice. And you can expect an upcoming ‘Music Video Theory’ post about this series sometime in the next year once I am a little freer to sit down and analysis every single detail of this confusing series.

Song – 9/10
Music Video – 8.5/10
Overall Rating – 8.8/10