TWS’s latest album, “NO TRAGEDY,” captures a sharper sense of romantic feeling than anything they’ve done before. In the LOVE GUIDE version of the “NO TRAGEDY” concept film, the group lays out “50 Ways to Approach Love,” from agonizing over what to wear and how to do your hair to rehearsing the facial expressions you’ll make and building a wish list of everything you want to do together. At the heart of wanting to share the things you love—like popcorn and a movie, stargazing, taking memorable photos, and surprise gifts—is the essence of love itself. The FINAL MOVE version tells a different story, though, with a strong shot of reality. Your motorcycle breaks down and keeps you apart. The flowers you bought wilt and the cake melts. “OPENING SONNET: star-cross’d lovers” draws on the prologue to the Shakespeare play “Romeo and Juliet” to create a parallel between the ill fate between the main characters and TWS’s own experiences where the feelings are strong and mutual but the world keeps you apart. Take one look at the title “NO TRAGEDY,” though, and you can tell the different direction TWS’s album will take—because this time, they’re making the first move.

TWS has always worn their emotions on their sleeves, and they’re not performative about them, either. That’s true of happiness and sadness, but also more complex and overwhelming emotions like feeling nervous, shy, or afraid. That includes the butterflies in your stomach when you rehearse saying hello because “first encounters are always so hard,” and the decision to follow your heart, at least a little. Even then, you’re at a loss for words as your “heart goes boom” when you’re standing face-to-face, and what comes out is pure pout. That’s probably why TWS’s songs feel so wistful when they sing in falsetto, and why there’s a kind of trembling uncertainty underpinning even their most upbeat tracks. The group’s always been bright and breezy, but now they’ve added some conviction to their emotional vocabulary. “You, You,” the lead single off “NO TRAGEDY,” opens with low notes in a minor key, and as the chorus approaches the emotions swell and the melody steadily climbs, but the boys never let their emotions tip over and spill out. Even lines that define the relationship outright, like “it’s already too late for us to go back,” land very matter-of-factly. Where love in their earlier song “Caffeine Rush” was more a “spacing out all day like a dream” state of being, you see more emotional certainty on the new album. In “You, You,” they define themselves through that other person (“you’re my whole world now”), something that the line “I call ‘love’ you” makes explicit. In “All the Possibilities,” they’re ready to meet “a side of me even I didn’t know,” ready to “follow you without a doubt.” Here, TWS sends all the thoughts and feelings that were swirling inside them outward, putting that special someone at the center of it all.

TWS typically sings with an unadorned steadiness that expresses deep emotions. On “NO TRAGEDY,” though, they’re full of high-energy determination, so when they really go for every single syllable of every single word against the backdrop of the hard-hitting beat and distorted guitar on “Get It Now,” it doesn’t read as youthful rebellion but as sincerity. With the choreography for “You, You,” too, what stands out amid the fast, intricate moves is the control they exercise in between. During the chorus, the group members keep their legs still while quickly popping their torsos with one arm fully extended on the line “you, you remind me.” They’ll also sweep one leg in a wide arc with the rest of their bodies locked in place, or stand to the side as an invisible wave passes softly through them, leaning more into the sense of maturity that restraint can convey. It marks a shift from when they’d stretch themselves limb to limb and leap knee-high into the air with about-to-burst, bouncing-off-the-walls energy. But the signature TWS spark is still there. They pour out their feelings right from the start and into the chorus. By the time they reach the hook, they repeatedly sing “dda-rum dda-rum” almost like they’re humming to themselves. The choreography adds to that playful, youthful energy too, the group boyishly shrugging with hands behind their backs. This is TWS’s version of pure-hearted devotion—precise, and with an attitude of never deceiving themselves, but no longer being knocked sideways by those feelings.

“Fire Escape” is the album’s most layered track in terms of what it says about TWS’s future direction. The unsettling repetition of the piano, like an alarm going off, gives the song a more intense beat than your typical dance track. The melody in their fast-paced vocals likewise emphasizes the rhythmic motion of the song, with little breaks scattered throughout thanks to the syncopation. It’s a breathless sprint of singing only made more exciting with the “only eyes on you” part that beckons for a sing-along. The whole thing’s uncertain and breakneck, with a rhythm that’s grounded and held together, plus whisper-light vocals and deep, resonating notes. Maybe it’s the perfect way of capturing TWS’s whole attitude of not knowing whether it’s “true romance / Or a bad romance,” but to “keep facing forward” and keep moving ahead anyway. And the song wraps up with absolute certainty by the time they sing the line, “you can fall off the edge of the world.”

“Back To Stranger” is where TWS promises to ask your name—that even if they lose you and become strangers again, they’ll be the ones to say hello first. That even if fate pulls you apart, they’ll personally see to it that that fate is corrected to be as it once was. Like how Taki and Mitsuha eventually find their way back to each other in the movie “Your Name.,” or how Peter Parker seeks out MJ again even after his very existence has been erased from the world in “Spider-Man.” The uncertainty that plagues the times we live in has a way of making you feel, and even what you want, feel hazy. When we’re in an era where your own future feels unclear, the idea of making promises to another person has entered the realm of romantic fantasy. So has totally investing yourself and all your energy into someone or something. TWS might be looking to turn such fantasies into something real—these boys who are honest enough with themselves to put their feelings into words, to reach out, to be trustworthy. In an age when nothing is certain, being trustworthy for someone might be the most romantic thing there is. And today’s Romeo has good news: “No fairy tale ends tragic.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​