On August 7, IVE pre-released "Crush," the title track of their upcoming second Japanese mini-album, Alive, which will be released on August 28.
"CRUSH" is a cute song, but it's not as catchy as IVE's previous releases; it feels more like a B-side (By the way, IVE has superb B-sides). Maybe the song just has to grow on me. This song reminds me so much of "I AM," which is such a magnificent song (it's my favorite song by IVE, followed by "LOVE DIVE"). Although I found "CRUSH" to be a lot less energetic than "I AM," I think it works great in the context of the tracks of Alive because "CRUSH" feels like a prelude to "I AM" (which is the third track of the mini-album, the second is "Will") -I hope that what I wrote makes any sense-.
The MV is also cute. The color palette of white, light blue, and pink gives the video a fresh feeling. I love the scenes where the members are dancing on the water surface of the pool; that set feels quite elegant (? Style-wise, the outfits of this MV are the best thing of this entire release, in my opinion, everyone looks super good. I have no complaints, I would 100% wear them all, especially Liz's light pink set, which is just so 😍. The hairstyles and hair accessories are also very pretty.
