[This review reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of allkpop.]

Track List:

1. I LOVE YOU

2. BLING LIKE THIS

Merely a month after their long-awaited debut, TREASURE is already back on the promotion circuit with their newest single "I LOVE YOU" on their 2nd single album, THE FIRST STEP: CHAPTER TWO. YG's newest boy group is having a quick series of comeback promotions and this newest release shows us a softer side than its intense counterpart, "BOY" did in their debut. The single album contains only two tracks: "I LOVE YOU" and "BLING LIKE THIS".

The group's main title, "I LOVE YOU" is a groovy song with a lot of really great power vocals. One thing YG did right with TREASURE is focus hard on the vocal abilities of the members- typically this is a very SM thing to do, but TREASURE exhibits some of the strongest vocalists of any rookie group that's debuted in the past few months. The concept is classic K-Pop: feeling intrigued and drawn to someone until you realize you're in love with them! "I LOVE YOU" has nice progression and harmonies for a group of this caliber, however, the chorus itself was not my favorite. I felt that the build into the chorus, or the bridge, was the catchiest and most memorable part rather than the startling EDM drop that seemed to hurt the song's progression. The song was fine and extremely melodic until the EDM chorus spice it up in a strange way.

"BLING LIKE THIS" is the b-side track on this single album. The song has a bouncy beat with a synth-heavy instrumental with nice harmony and vocal styling once again. However, this track seems to have the opposite problem from "I LOVE YOU" wherein the chorus for "BLING LIKE THIS" fits, but doesn't capture my attention. TREASURE will really benefit from taking the best of all their performances so far to channel into their next comeback. I think because the group is still a rookie group, they've yet to hit their sweet spot in terms of a signature sound.

MV REVIEW

TREASURE's "I LOVE YOU" MV is far less in-your-face than "BOY" and starts out with a bleeding heart as the members dance against a blue sky, a red sunset, and rushing water. Though the color palettes were phenomenal, I felt the green screen effects to be rather corny. Particularly in the rushing water scene where you can see the top of the location in which they are filming. It really makes you focus on the fact that the rushing water is just a giant green screen behind them in a studio, which detracts from keeping your attention on the members performing. For a group that YG seems to be prioritized over its other groups, they seem to not allocate enough budget to properly execute an impressive MV. 

SCORE:

MV Relevance…..7

MV Production…..5

MV Concept……..7

MV Score: 6.3

Album Production…...6

Album Concept……...5

Tracklisting…………...6

Album Score: 5.6

Overall: 6.0