TOMORROW X TOGETHER kicked off promotions for their latest album, “7TH YEAR: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns,” with a video titled “PRELUDE: Thorn Tree.” “There’s too much of me inside me,” it begins, intensely and paradoxically. “There’s no space left for you.” Inspired by the Towner & Town Chief song “Thorn Tree,” the video depicts the group members being thrown against each other and against their will, like branches lashing in the wind. In the same way that the external forces of the world intrude on a person’s life without warning, the group seems to be shoved here and there, defenseless, into “a darkness I can’t clear out” and “a grief that I can’t conquer.”
Because reality has been portrayed as “this f**ked up world” (“LO$ER=LO♡ER”) and “ruins” (“Deja Vu”) in their music, TOMORROW X TOGETHER had to flee into fantasy—a “dungeon,” the “hidden 9 ¾” platform (“The Dream Chapter: MAGIC”), Neverland (“The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION”). Escape may have been the best option they had. By the time they sing “save me” in “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)” (feat. Seori), the group has been waiting for someone to pull them out of the ruins of the real world. The new album’s HUNGER concept photos, set in a city reduced to rubble as if a cataclysmic storm had passed through, drive that image of reality home. The roads are falling apart, thorns bursting through massive cracks, and even then, the group remains unfazed—eating popcorn and tossing fruit around on overturned cars like none of it matters. Those thorns used to be a torment, but now the boys have accepted even those as just another part of life. They’re determined to live through another day of this crumbling reality.
In “Bed of Thorns,” the opening track that sets up the message behind the whole album, the group resolves to “face” all the pain “head-on.” Over arpeggiated synths that trace the lingering shadow of an anxiety they still can’t shake, they sing, “I made / My bed of thorns, and gladly lie in it,” with hard emphasis on each and every word. They’re attempting to seal up the crack between themselves and the world that’s been there for so long—a conflict with reality that arises from being in denial about what we lack. By accepting that, “even endlessly scratched up and hurt, I am who I am now,” the group extends an olive branch to their present selves. That narrative of self-acceptance continues on the track “Take Me to Nirvana” featuring Vinida Weng. “I finally set myself free,” they sing, at last hitting upon one of life’s truisms—that the only one who can save you is yourself. At the same time, they insist that only by being “submerged in this moment” can they shed “all that anguish / And even inner flaws.” “21st Century Romance” opens with the sound of a car starting, the wide, spacious sound conjuring images of the same colorless cityscape, but even in “this noisy gray city,” the group sings about how they’ll “tune in” to “the voice within” and find their own way through it. Only once they become the ones who can set themselves free can the five of them finally stand upright on their own, just as they do at the end of “PRELUDE: Thorn Tree.”
On “Beautiful Strangers,” the lead single off their previous album, TOMORROW X TOGETHER sang about overwhelmingly emotional subject matter while keeping their vocals reined in. Now, with their new single “Stick With You,” they’re done holding back, pleading “stay with me” and belting out “I keep clinging onto you” with insuppressible longing. The choreography, too, leans into that same ache, with hands-heavy tutting choreo that directly reflects the line “just one more day, then one more.” What seemed like a vague sentiment at first (“just one more day, then one more till I make it a lifetime”) becomes a commitment to give everything to the relationship. On the track “So What,” they rasp, “Does worrying put food on the table? So what,” and, “just do it.” For TOMORROW X TOGETHER, “just” used to be a word loaded with helplessness, like in the song title “Can’t We Just Leave the Monster Alive?” or the lyric “just a rock.” Now they shout it without hesitation—just do it. When they say they “just make the music we want to make,” you can almost feel the thrill in it—like they’re closing the book on years of wandering.
On the album closer, “Dream of Mine,” TOMORROW X TOGETHER finds their “reason to throw myself into the unknown” in “thrill that paints over fear creeping in”—the determination to take one more step toward the “tomorrow I always imagined / Even if it’s not the same.” The gritty bass and driving drums seem to underpin their resolve to breathe “deeper the more it hurts” and keep moving. As the title of the album alludes to, this seventh year for the group marks a moment of stillness in the thorns after they’ve renewed their contracts and as they stand on the verge of a new chapter. And in the process, their questions about how to live—as artists, as people—naturally find their way into the music.
In “I’ll See You There Tomorrow,” the group dreamed of a time when “there’ll be no more sorrow,” but when the wind kicks back up again, the sound of thorns thrashing around will ring out once more. Even so, tomorrow’s TOMORROW X TOGETHER will let the wind carry them as they “trace” their own “trajectory,” crashing on purpose into “this f**ked up world” and allowing themselves to feel as sad as they want.
