EXO have always been album artists. Even when a title track dominates the conversation, the boyband’s best work lives in the world-building: the sequencing, the atmosphere, the rich vocals. Their eighth studio album, ‘REVERXE’, doubles down on that identity, while revealing what happens when the blueprint changes.
With members Baekhyun, Chen and Xiumin sidelined amid ongoing contract disputes with the group’s label, SM Entertainment, ‘REVERXE’ arrives noticeably leaner. With only six of the band’s members – Suho, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai, Sehun and the returning Lay – contributing to the record, there are fewer stacked harmonies, less melodic cushioning, and more negative space than EXO are known for. In a way, it mirrors SM’s own moment of instability, making the album feel shaped as much by absence as by intention.
That tension between presence and absence is baked into the album’s pacing. ‘REVERXE’ is frontloaded with its most explosive ideas, barrelling out of the gate with ‘Crown’, a classic SM-style thrill ride that ricochets between rap, melody and pure velocity. Chanyeol and Sehun trade punchy verses as the chorus climbs, anchored by D.O and Suho’s steady vocal foundation, before the production drags everything back down into its murky undercurrent.
The momentum only builds on ‘Crazy’, which saves its best move for the finale. After the bridge, it ups the tempo and slips into throbbing techno, the kind of late-song escalation EXO have always excelled at. ‘Suffocate’ is the album’s most satisfying cut, though: dance-y and dark in that ‘Obsession’-era way, with a sense of forward motion that never lets the track sit still. Here, the vocals click into place, and Kai especially sells the hook, leaning into the lyrics (“suffocate me now”) with just enough heat to make it feel urgent instead of melodramatic.
The back half of ‘REVERXE’ is smoother, breezier and more casual, sometimes to its benefit and sometimes to its detriment – and it’s also where Lay’s return feels most natural. ‘Moonlight Shadows’ marks the pivot, a slow-paced, nocturnal R&B track that functions as the album’s hinge. From there, ‘Touch & Go’ floats by as an airy slow-burn, and ‘Back Pocket’ slides into a ’90s-leaning groove with a funky bassline. ‘Flatline’ is the biggest left turn of the bunch, landing as indie pop rock with a clean, glossy lift.
That said, the album’s weaker moments are the ones that play it either too trendy or too safe. ‘Back It Up’ flirts with noisy sonic conventions in a way that doesn’t quite suit EXO’s strengths. ‘I’m Home’, meanwhile, is where the album’s missing fullness feels most pronounced. It has the makings of a classic EXO winter ballad, but without Baekhyun, Chen and Xiumin’s voices, it never quite swells into the catharsis you expect.
As an album marked by absence, both in its lineup and in the creative infrastructure around it, ‘REVERXE’ feels leaner by design but never weightless. It doesn’t rewrite EXO’s canon, but its best moments hit with enough precision to remind you what the boyband are capable of – and that’s still more than most groups manage eight albums in.
