In 2021,
Twice wrote about love in more depth than ever before -- and for a group that debuted with tracks like "Like a Fool," "Do It Again," and "Truth," that's saying something. Earlier in the year, their tenth mini-album,
Taste of Love, offered fans a light-hearted summer fling before the Korean nine-piece dedicated their first English-language single, "The Feels," to a groove-led exploration of the titular emotion. But on their third Korean-language album,
Formula of Love: O+T=<3,
Twice are still pursuing the titular question of their 2017 smash hit: "What Is Love?"
Though the album's cover plants
Twice amid chemistry sets, magnifying glasses, and hastily scribbled formulae, finding love's "formula" proves immediately futile; on opening gambit "Scientist,"
Nayeon pushes toward intuition with a dismissive "Love ain't a science, don't need no license." Instead, the group use the album's 15 tracks to continue to explore the concept itself, ranging from the conflicted, moving-on phase of "Rewind" to the saccharine devotion of "Candy," from the snap-back "I'm just doing all the things that you do" of "Cruel" to the hopeful "tonight, we fall in love again" of "F.I.L.A."
The English-language cuts here - including smash hit "The Feels" -- mark exciting new territory for the group: "Moonlight" folds a
Sugarhill Gang drum pattern into a nostalgic disco-pop banger, while "Icon" fuses towering confidence, laddering melodies, and a sharp "Damn, I got it, I'm iconic" chorus into a near-perfect anthem. The album's more genre-fluid directions prove equally fruitful -- the dembow-lite rhythm of "1, 3, 2" and the electro-rap hybrid "Espresso" being firm highlights -- while more traditional K-Pop productions like "Real You" and "Rewing" continue to showcase the group's impressive vocal development. While a few sets of underbaked lyrics surface toward the project's close ("Hello," "Candy"), they're quickly eclipsed by late highlight "Push & Pull," which cements itself alongside
Domo Genesis' "Dapper" and
Rauw Alejandro's "Todo de Ti" as the perfect roller-rink throwback jam.
It remained to be seen whether
Twice's more mature sonic direction would map onto their full-length releases, but
Formula of Love surpasses expectations, infusing the group's love-centric lyricism with newfound confidence and creative flair. This is one of
Twice's most assertive and varied releases to date -- and with a more concise track listing, perhaps their best. ~ David Crone
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