EXO is returning with a re-release of their The War album early next month and are upping anticipation for The War: The Power of Music extended album through a variety of teaser images and videos that bring the Korean boy band back to its conceptual origins.
Beginning on Monday, EXO began promoting The Power of Music and the upcoming single “Power” through the group’s social media channels. Up first was a short video that gave a taste of the song’s retro electro-pop vibe and also hinted to the overall video-game inspired theme of the new release. Each day since, the K-pop act has dropped a clip that set up its eight members as video game characters, revisiting the supernatural abilities that the band’s fictionalized personas have shown off in past music videos and performances.
The group’s elemental powers, a mainstay of EXO’s mythos, returned in the latest clips in a seemingly sci-fi-themed video game setting where the members are embodied by characters who have to obtain powerful orbs.
Like The War, The Power of Music will not feature EXO’s sole Chinese member Lay, as he is busy with solo work in China.
The new version of the album will be released on Sept. 5 and will feature three new tracks on top of the nine originally released on The War in June. The Power of Music will be led by the single “Power,” and include “Boomerang” and “Sweet Lies.” Songwriting team LDN Noise, who have worked with the boy band in the past, posted on Instagram that they worked with Boy Matthews on “Power,” while EXO have hinted during live streams that member Chanyeol had a hand in writing some of their upcoming songs.
The original version of the album sold over 1.01 million albums, reports the Korea Herald, and is EXO’s fourth album to do break that million-mark.
EXO’s return to their mythology-driven origins in an updated format is in line with K-pop’s increasingly conceptual-driven marketing strategies, with many popular acts choosing to emphasize storylines that tie together their various musical releases. Other acts, including BTS, Monsta X, Dreamcatcher, and GOT7, have also carried through thematic plots throughout multiple albums and music videos, though EXO’s dedication to their storyline is the longest-lasting in the industry; it began prior to the group’s debut in 2012, when the members were individually introduced via an extraterrestrial origin story.
The War: Power of Music will be EXO’s fourth repackaged album and will be released in both Korean and Chinese.