{"id":1881299,"date":"2026-04-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1881299"},"modified":"2026-04-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:00:00","slug":"wonderland-131","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1881299","title":{"rendered":"Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\tWonderland<\/span>
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\n\t\t\tTOMORROW \u00d7 TOGETHER: IN STILLNESS, ALWAYS TOGETHER<\/span>
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Seven years in, five members still standing, and an album that turns anxiety into art \u2013 on their eighth mini album, TOMORROW X TOGETHER have never sounded more like themselves. <\/h3>\n
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\"TOMORROW<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

There is something almost unreal about TOMORROW X TOGETHER. When the Korean juggernauts dial in for our interview late at night from Seoul, it\u2019s five people in a room, calm and unhurried, talking openly about anxiety and doubt \u2013 it couldn\u2019t feel more human.<\/p>\n

But the concept photos<\/a> for their new album \u2013 7TH YEAR: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns<\/em> \u2013 tell a different story; TXT\u2019s visual artistry often feels like a portal to somewhere else entirely. HUNGER drops the five members into a cracked, upturned urban landscape \u2013 shot from above as if surveying the wreckage. TENSION \u2013 a set the members gave us an exclusive look at for this story \u2013 moves somewhere darker: a gothic dining room drenched in deep purple, opulent and deeply unsettling. ANXIETY transforms the natural world entirely, dousing forests and still water in infrared pink and magenta until nothing looks quite real. THORN strips it back \u2013 stark black and white, hot pink illustrated thorns cutting across the frame like graffiti. Four entirely different worlds, the same five people at the centre of it all.<\/p>\n

That duality \u2013 ethereal but grounded, otherworldly but deeply human \u2013 lies at the heart of everything TXT does. On their eighth mini album, 7TH YEAR: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns<\/em>, it feels more purposeful than ever.<\/p>\n

The title alone signals a shift. Gone is the \u201cChapter\u201d <\/em>naming system that has defined their discography since debut \u2013 a lore-driven framework that concluded with last year\u2019s The Star Chapter: TOGETHER<\/em>. In its place, there\u2019s now something more direct. SOOBIN, YEONJUN, BEOMGYU, TAEHYUN, and HUENINGKAI have been doing this for seven years. They are still here, together, and that says enough.<\/p>\n

This marks their first release since all five members renewed their contracts with BIGHIT MUSIC in August 2025 \u2013 a moment that carries real weight in an industry where groups at this milestone could easily come apart. The \u2018seven-year curse\u2019, as it\u2019s called in K-pop<\/a>, has claimed no one here. Listening to the album, and to the five of them in conversation, it\u2019s hard to be surprised. The teamwork feels genuine, the candour about struggle is real, and the decision to stay as one reads like something they consciously chose together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That choice is embedded in the new music itself. The album\u2019s title track, \u201cStick With You\u201d, carries a Korean title that translates as \u201cFor One More Day And Then Just One More\u201d \u2013 born, BEOMGYU tells us, from the anxiety of wanting one more day with their members and one more day with MOA (the name of their fanbase) before contracts were signed. It is technically a love song; when talking to the members, it\u2019s also clearly something broader than that.<\/p>\n

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\"TOMORROW
SOOBIN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"TOMORROW
HUENINGKAI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Themes of anxiety and existential unease are not new territory for TXT \u2013 \u201cGrowing Pains\u201d, \u201c0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)\u201d, \u201cMaze in the Mirror\u201d (co-produced by BEOMGYU), and much of the \u201cChapter\u201d era navigated similar ground. But where those records externalised the feeling \u2013 at times raw and abrasive, at others urgent and restless \u2013 7TH YEAR: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns<\/em> turns inward. The album\u2019s electronic soundscape \u2013 built on techno-inflected production the group has never leaned into quite like this \u2013 gives the same emotional weight a different texture, softer and more introspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cBed of Thorns\u201d kicks off with scaling synth melodies over a crushed electro-pop backbone. \u201cStick With You\u201d sounds like the soundtrack to a whimsical late-night drive through a neon cityscape; a voiceover asks \u201cIs this a dream?\u201d during the breakdown, but it doesn\u2019t feel like a rhetorical question. \u201cTake Me to Nirvana\u201d brings euphoric piano chords over a funky house beat; the calmer cousin to 2024\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ll See You There Tomorrow\u201d. \u201cSo What\u201d arrives with a Miami Bass swagger and bratty energy, while \u201c21st Century Romance\u201d brings an ethereal, meditative turn, before \u201cDream of Mine\u201d closes things with a climactic exhale. The world they\u2019re building is sonically consistent: nocturnal, emotionally open, and unmistakably theirs.<\/p>\n

The campaign around the album extended that logic further \u2013 an Anti Anxiety Club microsite and its tongue-in-cheek anxiety-relief merchandise turned the album\u2019s central theme into something fans could participate in, right down to its mascot: a faceless, all-black silhouette bristling with spikes that became a viral fixture of the rollout.<\/p>\n

TOMORROW X TOGETHER are a group who have earned their right. They have sold out arenas and stadiums across three continents, landed on cereal boxes in the US and drink cans across Japan, and built one of K-pop\u2019s most fiercely devoted fanbases. The scale is genuinely remarkable. What\u2019s more remarkable is the stillness at the centre of it all. Seven years in, they\u2019ve never seemed more certain of who they are.<\/p>\n

Read on for our in-depth conversation with TOMORROW X TOGETHER about 7TH YEAR: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns<\/em>, late-night comfort chats over snacks, and why their teamwork is as strong as ever in this new era.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Listen to the album\u2026<\/p>\n

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Wonderland: Let\u2019s start by talking about the title of your new album, \u201c7TH YEAR: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns.\u201d You\u2019ve moved away from the \u2018Chapter\u2019 naming, and it\u2019s also the first album after <\/strong>The Star Chapter: TOGETHER<\/em><\/strong> completed your lore storyline. It feels like you\u2019re marking a new milestone \u2013 how does it feel to be starting this new era together?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

TAEHYUN: Exactly. Before, with the chapters, we talked about our stories but through the five boys who are our personas. This time around, we take on the role of narrators directly, so it feels new. But with all the albums we\u2019ve prepared so far, we\u2019ve really poured our hearts and souls into it. So in that sense, it\u2019s still the same.<\/p>\n

HUENINGKAI: After the set of albums that we had already released, this is our first after renewing our contract with our label \u2013 so we actually had a lot of worries and anxiety about it, because this would be a whole new chapter, and something that we\u2019re trying for the first time. Preparing for the album wasn\u2019t easy, but we bonded as a team. Through our team work, I think we could get over those hardships \u2013 and now we have a very good album.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Parts of this album are inspired by the Korean folk song \u201cThorn Tree\u201d \u2013 but what does the full title \u201cA Moment of Stillness in the Thorns\u201d mean to you personally, and how does it connect to your \u201c7TH YEAR\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOOBIN: The thorn tree can mean different things to different people. For us five, the thorn tree was a metaphor of anxiety and insecurities that we feel, and all the things that are in the back of our minds. For me personally, I thought that as we become more mature, and we have more eras behind us, I wanted to ask: what else can I show people and MOA? What new facet of myself can I show? I always think about what my limits are and where I could go and strive towards. I think that was my thorn or thorn tree.<\/p>\n

The versions of this album are titled HUNGER, TENSION, ANXIETY, and THORN \u2013 each with its own completely different visual world. Which version resonates with you most personally, and what did it feel like to step into that version\u2019s concept?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TAEHYUN: I think, for me, I really resonated with HUNGER. I think it was expressed so well \u2013 everything is a mess, but we are just eating as if nothing happened in the middle of all that. Over the past seven years, not everything went as planned, and sometimes reality falls short of our expectations. We always have that anxiety and insecurity, but we have to come to terms with it and do what we have to do. So I think HUNGER was a version that really connected with me.<\/p>\n

BEOMGYU: I really liked THORN, because I thought it served as a good metaphor for expressing anxiety, chaos, and emptiness.<\/p>\n

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TAEHYUN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

You also marked the album release with the \u2018Anti Anxiety Club\u2019 pop-up and the viral spiky character. TOMORROW X TOGETHER are known for these unique pre-release album activities. How do these moments change how you think about your relationship with MOA?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BEOMGYU: When we were preparing this album, we thought long and deep about which path we should take and which direction we should head in. In that process, I think it was only natural that we felt a lot of anxiety, and we thought: instead of hiding and suppressing those emotions, why not infuse them into our album? That\u2019s why we came up with the campaign in that same context. We feel the same way: we have our own thorns, and I believe that everybody else has their own thorns and anxiety. I just hope that, through our activities and through our album, people who have those thorns feel seen and they feel less alone.<\/p>\n

TAEHYUN: The reason why we came up with the thorn man \u2013 the spiky man \u2013 is because we didn\u2019t want to just go to the dark side when expressing anxiety. We wanted to have a lot of different ways of expressing anxiety. So there was a comical version, which is the thorn man.<\/p>\n

Moving on to the sound of this album \u2013 it has a stronger electronic and dance sound than previous albums. Why did that direction feel like the right sound for this phase of TOMORROW X TOGETHER?<\/strong><\/p>\n

HUENINGKAI: After renewing our contract with our label, we wanted to try something new, and this time around, we thought about the techno genre. The reason why is that we\u2019ve never really worked with the genre, and I thought that if we tried this one, it would give us a new feel, and a new sound. You can feel a lot of the techno genre in the whole album \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of electronic sounds. We added our own flair to it, and then we also added elements such as love that means so much to you. That really works well with the techno sound, to give you the feeling that you can experience from this album.<\/p>\n

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The lead track is \u201cStick With You\u201d \u2013 why did this song feel like the right one to represent this era?<\/strong><\/p>\n

HUENINGKAI: The reason why we chose \u201cStick With You\u201d as the lead single is because having your love fade away is something that everyone can resonate with, and has been through; I thought this was a universal thing that people can really relate to. Also, the chorus part is very impactful, so we thought that if we use this chorus and have choreography with it, it\u2019s going to look really stunning \u2013 that\u2019s why we chose this song.<\/p>\n

BEOMGYU: \u201cStick With You\u201d had the message that we really wanted to convey through this album. On the outside, it seems like it\u2019s talking about love, but it\u2019s also about us; the Korean title is \u201cFor One More Day And Then Just One More.\u201d Before re-signing the contract, we had anxious thoughts because we wanted one more day with MOA, and we wanted one more day with our members \u2013 that was the thorn and the anxiety that we had. I think \u201cStick With You\u201d is a song that really shows how we wanted to stick together and also stick with MOA. It\u2019s exactly the message that we wanted to convey.<\/p>\n

TAEHYUN: As BEOMGYU said, while this can be a love song, it\u2019s also about sticking to your dream, which might not come to fruition in real-life because sometimes reality falls short of your expectations. I think a lot of people can resonate with that, because sometimes things just don\u2019t always work out, and although you know with your mind that it might not work out, you just want to cling on to it inside your heart. If there are people like that listening \u2013 who are having those kinds of dreams \u2013 they would definitely resonate with this song.<\/p>\n

Touring wise, the past year has been busy. You completed your first Europe tour, ACT : PROMISE, then launched ACT : TOMORROW, which finished earlier this year, and then held three 2026 TXT MOA CON concerts. Given the busyness of the schedule, how do you look after each other when things are like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOOBIN: Because we work in a group, when somebody is tired, the rest of us are too. What we do is: we have some late-night snacks together, and we talk over those snacks. I don\u2019t think we need to do anything special for the members; we just love to talk amongst ourselves, and that means a lot to us. It\u2019s just one of those moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TAEHYUN: Sometimes we get tired and exhausted when we\u2019re working, but when MOA likes it, or they post great comments and we can see they are really enjoying it with their reactions, then all that fatigue just fades away.<\/p>\n

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\"TOMORROW
YEONJUN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"TOMORROW
BEOMGYU<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Looking back over seven years \u2013 we\u2019ve seen TOMORROW X TOGETHER connect with people all over the world, from sold-out arenas to cereal boxes in the US and drink cans in Japan. Why do you think TXT resonates like that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TAEHYUN: I think it\u2019s because we\u2019ve always tried to genuinely connect with our listeners. Our songs focus a lot on growing pains and heartbreaks that define a certain period of our lives, which are emotions that many people can relate to. We\u2019ve also gained a deeper sense of who we are and have developed our songwriting to better express ourselves through our music. Apart from our songs, we also launched the global campaign, \u201cTOGETHER FOR TOMORROW,\u201d partnered with UNICEF, to emphasise the importance of mental health as well. I believe our sincere efforts to understand and resonate with the struggles of our generation have really connected with people.<\/p>\n

Linking back to the \u201c7TH YEAR\u201d part of the album title \u2013 what would you say to the version of you who started their 1ST YEAR of TXT in 2019 with <\/strong>The Dream Chapter: Star<\/em><\/strong>?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOOBIN: If I could speak to my younger self, I\u2019d say: \u201cKeep going.\u201d There have been times when things didn\u2019t go as we expected or planned, and we\u2019ve definitely had our ups and downs. I still remember breaking down in tears because I felt so overwhelmed by the weight of being a leader. But I\u2019m so grateful to my team for getting us this far together, and I hope the version of me in 2019 is as proud of where we are now as I am.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also like to ask one question to each member, starting with SOOBIN as the leader. How has your idea of leadership changed over seven years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOOBIN: It\u2019s a very difficult question. Usually, when people think of leadership \u2013 and it was the same for me \u2013 we think of charismatic people; people with power. I thought that I wasn\u2019t cut out for this role, because I\u2019m nothing like that. But later on, I realised that leadership can come in different forms \u2013 it can be charismatic and powerful, but for some groups, they need softer leaders. All the members of our group are so kind, nice, and very soft-hearted. I think rather than having a very strict kind of leader, I think it worked better with a leader like me who would be softer to them. Because they follow my leadership, I now like my characteristics and personality more.<\/p>\n

YEONJUN, how did working on your solo album, <\/strong>NO LABELS: PART 01<\/em><\/strong>, last year help you gain a better understanding of your role in TXT moving forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n

YEONJUN: It gave me a lot of different ideas and food for thought, but I think the role in TOMORROW X TOGETHER is still the same. Despite having a solo album, I think I still feel the same way about my role in the team.<\/p>\n

BEOMGYU, when you think about the BEOMGYU who made your mixtape \u201cPANIC\u201d and the BEOMGYU making music in this \u201c7TH YEAR\u201d era, what has changed for you, and where do you want to go from here as a musician?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BEOMGYU: I\u2019m still the same person, but if I write a new song right now,\u2029I think maybe the song would be more optimistic and higher energy. I always try to stay true to myself in that moment, and talk about the feelings and experiences that I\u2019m going through at that moment. I want to keep doing that: making sure that I can give solace to people, and helping people resonate with my songs.<\/p>\n

TAEHYUN, you\u2019re known as someone who loves being a member of TOMORROW X TOGETHER more than anything. It\u2019s something your members have also said about you in the past. What is it about being part of TOMORROW X TOGETHER that makes you feel this way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TAEHYUN: Being part of TOMORROW X TOGETHER allowed me to learn a lot of things about myself. Before being part of this team, I don\u2019t think I was that ambitious or proactive about anything, but being part of the group just changed my life. Being TOMORROW X TOGETHER is my life right now. I get greedy about wanting more for us, but it\u2019s because I want more for our group. I think TOMORROW X TOGETHER is a really great intellectual property \u2013 we are a great team, and we have great members. I\u2019m just really so happy to be part of this, and I\u2019m very grateful.<\/p>\n

HUENINGKAI, as the youngest member, what are some values you\u2019ve learned from your older members over the years?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

HUENINGKAI: Well, the big brothers here are great, and I think they\u2019re great leaders because I really always want to follow their trail. I learned a lot from them \u2013 especially seeing their solo projects and their work with music. It makes me feel like I should work harder, so I can create music like that too.<\/p>\n

Words \u2013 Hasan Beyaz <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tA night of firsts with YAZ<\/span> <\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonderland TOMORROW \u00d7 TOGETHER: IN STILLNESS, ALWAYS TOGETHER Seven years in, five members still standing, and an album that turns anxiety into art \u2013 on their eighth mini album, TOMORROW X TOGETHER have never sounded more like themselves. There is something almost unreal about TOMORROW X TOGETHER. When the Korean juggernauts dial in for our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,257],"class_list":["post-1881299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-wonderlandmagazine-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1881299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1881299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1881299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1881299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}