THE BOYZ has been nominated for Best Male Group, Best Male Dance Performance (Group) for ROAR and Best Music Video (for ROAR) in the 2023 KPOPREVIEWED Awards. If you want to support THE BOYZ and your other favourite artists, songs and performance, click here to vote today.

THE BOYZ kicked off this week with the second part of their PHANTASY studio album, with this instalment titled Sixth Sense. It features the title track WATCH IT and follows on from the Christmas in August instalment, which was lead by the single LIP GLOSS. While the comeback does feature all members of THE BOYZ, member Ju Hakyeon will be sitting out of promotions due to a back injury.

Now, this is one cool and sleek song. When I first checked out WATCH IT on Monday upon its release, there were two parts of the song that really stood out to me – the melody in the vocal parts of the pre-choruses and Sunwoo’s “Hi hello, My name is what you want it to” line in the second verse. I was instantly reaching for the replay button to relive those two segments. Further listens has helped me identify the bridge to be another highlight of WATCH IT, especially with Jacob’s high note that just blows me away. All of this sets the bar up quite high, and the rest of WATCH IT follows through quite well. I really like the subtle funkiness in the instrumentation, but also the rough synths and bass that is present in the background. This all puts WATCH IT into the realm of dance music, but the producers did a really great job of making it alluring and mature-sounding. The low-groan deliver of the chorus is very interesting, but works with the subtle funkiness and low bass that is going on in the background. All of the rapping brings the sleekness that I mentioned earlier, forming a very prominent feature in WATCH IT that needs to be touched on somehow. I like how the vocal segments help spreads everything apart. And as mentioned above, the vocals serves us with some of the best parts of WATCH IT. All in all, I am very impressed with the likes of WATCH IT.

I feel like the music video is probably the weakest link of this comeback. And it comes down to a pretty small detail, if I am being honest (relying on what I got out of the video that is). What we saw in terms of visuals, choreography scenes and styling was pretty much top-notch and amazing. The members looked very fine throughout the video and the choreography shots all looked very polished. But it is the plot line that I think is in the music video somewhat that left me a bit confused. We went from a shady jewelry store front to a truck explosion, and I am not entirely sure what this is all about. The cat and something in Juyeon’s blood vessels also leaves me scratching my head. And I feel like the music video was lacking a fair bit in between to really tell that story. Or, I could be missing a prequel video and that might fill in all of the gaps, or I am overthinking what could just be what is supposed to be a “cool” set of scenes. Happy for you to point me in the right direction or to comment on any theories that I should know about.

The flow of this choreography, especially with moves across the stage (such as the slow glide during Sunwoo’s “Hi Hello” line in the second verse), brings that sleekness featured in the song to the choreography. And like all THE BOYZ performances, I am in awe with their showmanship and skills that they show off in the performance on stage. I would have liked to have seen a more defining move during the chorus, but this routine is already pretty fantastic as it is.

Song – 9/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 9.5/10
Overall Rating – 8.8/10