​When dreams are thrust into reality 

Myeongseok Kang: In The Name Chapter concept trailer put out by TOMORROW X TOGETHER last year, HUENINGKAI jumps all alone out of a house in the sky. Now the next page of that chapter has been revealed: the new album, FREEFALL—falling as a result of one’s own free will. The opening track, “Growing Pain,” begins with the line, “Been free falling,” and goes into how it hurts to fall (“my whole body aches”). But, as the lyrics to the single “Chasing That Feeling” describe, to choose not to fall would be to just wait around for the world to crumble to pieces, turning away from reality to stay stuck in a mirage: “I turn my back on heaven and / Fall from the sky / Maybe I’ll miss it for good / The sweet mirage.” Like the boys of TOMORROW X TOGETHER acknowledge in the track “Dreamer,” the world is divided into “adults who don’t dream and boys who only have dreams.” In order to keep their dreams from disappearing like a daydream, they have to face reality before they become adults—people who no longer dream. It’s only during youth that something like this could ever be possible. It’s a period of life between boyhood and adulthood, when you can say, “in that typical fork in the road, I’m gray,” and it’s there that a boy’s dream ultimately becomes an existential force as he battles his way through real life (“I dream again / The name I retrieved”) allowing him to define who he is. The group declares in “Deep Down” that the “horn suddenly coming out of my head” that once left them “feeling ashamed” is now “a big crown on me / No longer a hideous horn / You’re my silver lining.” It’s a sentiment that anyone trying to make their dreams come true while surviving real life will recognize. By living life without running away from reality or giving up on their dreams, the boys learn to accept everything about themselves just the way they are. In spirit, then, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL is a comprehensive piece that plays out a lot like a road trip movie as the young boys navigate their way through the real world, and is also a pivotal moment in the journey TOMORROW X TOGETHER has taken together so far. Ever since debuting with the song “CROWN,” the boys have been up in the air somewhere between reality and fantasy. In “Run Away,” they even ask themselves, “Should we run away from reality?” Later, in the music video for “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)” featuring Seori, they take off in a car instead, but they still can’t escape the real world. Now, in FREEFALL, they’re redefining what it means to be young by making a U-turn away from Neverland and straight toward reality—living there without hiding their horns or their dreams.

“Growing Pain” draws on the thrashing power of emocore for its particular sound, with the voices of the TOMORROW X TOGETHER members intentionally buried deep into the soundscape, adding a sense of depth and suggesting the feeling of pushing emotions down inside. They even sing the chorus in a restrained falsetto (“Into the pain / Throw it”), keeping any potentially explosive outbursts at bay. It’s once the album moves onto its seventh track, “Skipping Stones,” that the boys really break out with pure rock power. Earlier in the album, they see the horns on their heads as crowns and accept them as part of their identity in “Deep Down,” and the rest of reality, too, in “Happily Ever After” (“Even after closing the fairy tale book / Life still goes on … So what? I rather like it this way”). When they finally get to “Skipping Stones,” they reaffirm their determination to get on with the real world, bruises and all: “The water that swallowed the scars will become calm someday / And it will have a wide embrace.” In FREEFALL, the sound itself is the journey the group takes, with each track on the album finding its own way to leverage the music to match the message, the soundscape of each coming together to form one unified whole. Where the emocore sound of “Growing Pain” explores how much it hurts to fall back into reality, the synth-pop “Chasing That Feeling” tries to race fearlessly through that real world (“My fate, come and kiss me / I just keep on chasing that feeling”). The boys’ voices are full of sorrow but still dynamic as each sings about how they “turn my back on heaven.” Their vocals grow calmer and the beats in the album slow as it moves through the R&B-infused “Dreamer” and the synth-laden “Deep Down.” The progressive levelling out of emotions that flow through the album changes direction when the music briefly drops out during this track on the line, “Deep down I need you more,” acknowledging their horns as high-tempo EDM beats take over from the second verse. After an atmospheric free fall, the album rises again from “Happily Ever After,” the boys’ voices chipper right from the start. The track’s followed up by the rocker “Skipping Stones,” which then segues into “Blue Spring,” opening with the rousing words, “When we’re high / When we’re low / You’re always by my side / All my youth is filled with your warmth.” With no fear of the real world now, the boys are fully open to their identity and to love as the “once so chilly world / Blooms into spring at last.” Love has always been one of TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s core tenets, but they may find a different kind of value in it after crashing down into reality in free fall. The “gray” TOMORROOW X TOGETHER members’ vocals make good on the messages and music of every track in this journey to discover their youth, perfectly encapsulating what it’s like for someone to find their own path through life while they’re still young. Though each track off the album explores a different genre, they form one complete story solely through the music.

The Name Chapter: FREEFALL aims to flesh out a different musical genre on every one of its tracks, and the songs eschew variations of each of their themes in favor of repeating the choruses and verses to make for a series of tight, compact packages. Some might brush this approach off as following the current pop formula, but TOMORROW X TOGETHER makes the album their own by “Chasing That Feeling” through finely tuning their vocals to emphasize the message behind each song and the album’s journey as a whole. In other words, the group takes the trappings of pop and brings something magical to the story and the message—TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s own brand of pop music. Like dream-filled boys forge their own destinies in a world where adults have lost the ability to dream, the group finds their identity within the world of pop. That’s how these young men set up their own little space within the real world.

​Magic takes root in reality and flourishes 

Oh Minji: “Sometimes magical moments can be found in the most unmagical places.” Those are the words that close the concept teaser for TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s latest album, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, as the boys say goodbye to their own personal Neverland and each tumbles down in an “endless fall” (“Growing Pain”) by choice (“I throw myself,” “Chasing That Feeling”) to land somewhere new—somewhere where magical moments can no longer be found. Unlike Peter Pan, they can’t fly, much less be boys forever. In the video, they’re like flowers that “turn my back on heaven and fall from the sky” (“Chasing That Feeling”), left to bloom in solitude along a barren asphalt road and next to a sewer where they’ll be washed away come even the slightest rain.

The place TOMORROW X TOGETHER has stumbled upon, however, is not entirely REALITY, as the name of their concept clip echoes, but rather one where buildings and umbrellas help protect them from the downpour. Unlike in the concept teaser, in the REALITY clip, they’re safe from being swept away by rain, and there’s no risk of “pain on my flesh” or having to be “prepared to die” (“Chasing That Feeling”). But it’s still clearly a set made for TOMORROW X TOGETHER, with it raining upwards, and words like “DOWN TO EARTH” and “FREEFALL” written on the ground and walls. They seem to have finally stopped falling and have their feet on the ground in the concept video for MELANCHOLY, the next in the series, but given that YEONJUN is in a cage and SOOBIN is behind bars, they’re not free, either. It could be that the wolfdog that’s with them in the fake reality—a place that’s neither completely real, nor where the boys are entirely free—is a symbolic mirror for the boys themselves. The animal—finally free from its simultaneously protective and restrictive cage (Neverland) but still barred from entering the real world—comes across as an analogy for Peter Pan-like characters in the real world: boys who want to become adults but can’t because they have never seen a real adult with their own eyes.

Even though they choose not to “run away and avoid” things and instead fall and deal with the accompanying agony, there’s no doubt that facing the wicked destiny that dooms them to “wander” comes with its fair share of growing pains (“Deep Down”). But there are times when you have to go through something painful in order to have something better at the end. For example, the TOMORROW X TOGETHER members wear pearls around their necks in the CLARITY concept clip. It’s only after an oyster’s shell is invaded by a foreign body and the creature endures the pain that a pearl is finally formed, so they act as an exclusive medal of bravery for those who have dealt with pain (“though my blood spills and bones break … I throw myself into a dream that doesn’t lie,” “Growing Pain”). TOMORROW X TOGETHER are now standing on top of the true real world, having overcome their pains and earned their pearls and freedom. For them, reality is the roof that they thought had been there to protect them all along. It's somewhere they could fall from at any given moment and once again be left unprotected from the elements, but it’s also where they can turn down the “Devil by the Window” tempting them with whispers (“Dream on, dream on, good night!”) and finally say, “To a new sun every day, good morning” (“Happily Ever After”).

The noises that can be heard through the concept films feel like glitches that come about because TOMORROW X TOGETHER, once living in a fairy tale-like world, is entering the real one. The noises crack and sputter as the boys stand “in that typical fork in the road” where “adults who don’t dream and boys who only have dreams” exist. It’s at that fork—where they face reality without giving up their youth—that the “magical moments” bloom. Like this album, for one.