WOODZ made his official comeback yesterday with his new single Journey and his fifth mini-album, OO-LI. This new release comes after WOODZ teased this comeback by pre-releasing the side track ABYSS back in February (which I yet to review – will do so some time in the future). This comeback follows WOODZ’s I HATE YOU and Colorful Trauma era from last year.

WOODZ continues to explore the pop rock genre with Journey, this time opting for what felt like a ballad. While his past pop rock styled songs have been more energetic and upbeat, Journey still has a lot of appeal in its own way. My suggestion is that you do not underestimate this song. What particular draws me to Journey is the amount of passion WOODZ delivers in the song, which comes about from the combination of instrumental and vocals. The song starts off rather calm, but it slowly injects some slight punk-like energy during the pre-chorus, before leading us to a full blown realization of pop rock energy in the chorus. But we aren’t talking about upbeat and bright territory of pop rock, which is what I commonly think of when it comes to this style of music. Instead, the choruses for Journey intensifies and amplifies into that pop rock motif, yet gives us a more restrained and subdued atmosphere that still manages to pack a punch. As the choruses does all of this, WOODZ’s vocals soars, blowing me away with his strong and impactful vocals. I do want to point out that the melodies were rather simple, and a more developed melody would have raised the bar for Journey. The second verse is a lot shorter, and I wished there was a bit more to it. I liked the idea of a quite return to the chorus (which is no doubt my favourite part of Journey). But I think the second verse could have been more thrashed out. The bridge returns Journey to the calm start, but does so quite briefly, before returning us to the chorus. For the final run at Journey‘s centrepiece, backing vocals come in to create an even more melodic touch and allows WOODZ to throw in some amazing ad-libs to close out the song. Despite its minor imperfections, it does not change the fact that Journey is still a passionate and impactful song that I will continue to replay.

The music video leads on from the events of the ABYSS music video. At the end of that video, we see WOODZ open up the door, allowing the version of himself he has kept locked away in the dark confines of the building to come out. We even see the ABYSS version of WOODZ walk past briefly at the start of this video. Anyway, the Journey version of WOODZ ends up venturing out and exploring the world, taking himself on a journey and discovering oneself, which is the message behind the video. The outdoor scenery looks stunning. I would like to know more about the tree that looks like it made out of glass. I think this is another link to the ABYSS music video, as we do see the passing of glass spheres from other people to WOODZ in the earlier video, and WOODZ’s own glass spheres ends up going through the ground in this music video, presumably to build the mentioned tree as WOODZ discover himself.

As this is a more vocally centric song, WOODZ doesn’t participate as much in the choreography. Instead, he focuses his energy on performing the stage live, which was the right move and make his performance even more amazing. He does participate during the moments in which he doesn’t sing, and I quite liked the artistic touch the dancer bring to the stage, creating an interesting stage to watch.

Song – 8.5/10
Music Video – 8.5/10
Performance – 9/10
Overall Rating – 8.6/10