XLOV Returns October 28 With ‘i=!’ and Two Contrasting Title Tracks

“Hush” and “Tooth Gem Chihuahua” lead a third mini-album that explores difficult choices, unrealized possibilities and the uncertainty of becoming someone new.

XLOV’s next chapter begins with a question that their previous album left open: after choosing who you want to become, what happens to all the possibilities you leave behind? The four-member group returns on October 28 at 6 p.m. KST with i=!, pronounced “I Equals I,” extending the story introduced through May’s I,God while taking its music toward hyperpop, electronic dance and jazz-influenced R&B.

The third mini-album arrives approximately five months after its predecessor and features two title tracks, “Hush” and “Tooth Gem Chihuahua,” that approach its themes through markedly different sounds and imagery. Alongside the expanded narrative, the release includes contributions from members Wumuti and Hyun, as well as unit songs that introduce different combinations of the four performers.

From a Chess Pawn’s Transformation to the Paths Not Taken

On I,God, XLOV drew inspiration from pawn promotion, the chess rule that allows a pawn reaching the opposite end of the board to become another piece. The group used that transformation to tell a story about possibility, suggesting that even an initially vulnerable figure could reach a destination where a different identity becomes available.

With i=!, the focus moves beyond that destination to the uncertainty surrounding a decision. According to StrangeLab’s description of the album, the new story considers both the consequences of a choice and the possibilities that remain unchosen, exploring the fear and confusion that can accompany moving in one direction while leaving another behind.

That development gives the comeback a connection to the earlier release without requiring it to repeat the same emotional journey. Where the pawn-promotion motif emphasized what someone might become, the new album turns toward the complications of deciding, creating room for contradictory impulses and competing versions of the self.

‘Hush’ Builds Tension Around Two Opposing Forces

“Hush,” one of the album’s two title tracks, combines heavy bass with East Asian-inspired tonal colors to establish a restrained, tense atmosphere. Its concept sets a guiding deity against an opposing figure that intensifies nightmares, using the contrast to explore the coexistence of different forces within life.

The premise connects with the album’s interest in uncertainty, placing guidance and fear within the same narrative rather than offering an uncomplicated path forward. Based on the advance description, the song’s weight comes from the relationship between its controlled musical tension and those opposing figures, giving XLOV a darker framework for this part of the story.

A Wolf Dreams of Becoming a Chihuahua

The second title track, “Tooth Gem Chihuahua,” introduces a more surreal setting through a wolf raised by a family of chihuahuas who believes it can become a beautiful chihuahua itself. That dream-world premise brings questions of identity and belonging into an unusual, immediately recognizable image, with the character’s imagined future shaped by the family around it.

Musically, the song combines a dreamcore aesthetic and hyperpop with house rhythms, distorted electronic sounds and repeated vocal chops. Its description promises a different texture from the bass-heavy tension of “Hush,” giving the two title tracks separate roles within the same album rather than presenting two versions of a single mood.

Together, the songs introduce a release concerned with how people imagine themselves and what they believe they can become. One approaches that uncertainty through opposing supernatural forces, while the other places it inside an improbable dream of transformation.

Member Contributions and New Unit Combinations

The album contains eight tracks, including “Cat Move,” “All Tied Up” and “Silence,” alongside the two title songs and alternate versions. Its announced range moves between hyperpop, electronic dance and jazz-based R&B, allowing the larger narrative to unfold through several musical approaches.

Wumuti appears in the credits across the project, including both title tracks, while Hyun wrote the lyrics for “Silence.” Unit songs also form part of the release, providing another way to hear the members outside the full-group arrangement and drawing attention to how their voices work in different combinations.

For XLOV, whose activities have emphasized a genderless concept since debut, the comeback continues an interest in identities that resist a single prescribed form. The new album gives that approach another narrative setting, with transformation, doubt and unrealized possibilities connecting its contrasting songs.

XLOV’s third mini-album i=! will be released on October 28 at 6 p.m. KST.

Editor’s Note: XLOV consists of Wumuti, Rui, Hyun and Haru and debuted on January 7, 2025, with the single album I’mma Be, according to the group’s official Japanese profile and StrangeLab’s artist information. The agency describes the group’s name as combining “X,” associated with the unknown and negation, with “LOV,” representing unfinished love, providing background for its continuing exploration of identity and transformation.