izna SET THE TEMPO — Teddy Park's Formula, izna's Conviction
The short version: "METRONOME" is the best song Teddy Park has attached his name to in a while, and izna performs it like they've been waiting for exactly this production. That's already worth something. The longer version is that SET THE TEMPO, izna's third mini-album released today through WAKEONE, is a five-track record that earns its confidence and spends it wisely - until the final two tracks, where it doesn't.
Some context. izna was formed through Mnet's I-Land 2 in 2024, assembled under the creative direction of Teddy Park and The Black Label. The BLACKPINK lineage is right there in the architecture: the branding, the silence-before-detonation production style, the cultivated sense of cool that doesn't quite admit it's working hard. Their debut EP N/a topped iTunes Top Albums in 14 countries and peaked at No. 3 on the Korean Circle Chart. The second EP Not Just Pretty followed in September 2025. Neither was a statement record - both were capable throat-clearing. SET THE TEMPO is the first time the formula and the group feel like the same thing.
"METRONOME" opens the album and announces itself immediately. Teddy, KUSH, VVN, and IDO build the track on a deep house pulse that stays controlled through the verse and then releases exactly when it needs to - a chorus that doesn't spike so much as accelerate, like a clock that decides to run fast. The metaphor (life as a metronome; keep your own rhythm against the chaos) could be lazy in someone else's hands. The execution makes it feel earned. Members Choi Jung-eun and Mai told press at today's showcase that the house beat was chosen specifically because it could carry the weight of their performance style. They're right. The choreography works because the track allows it to - it's built wide enough for physicality rather than despite it.
"R.I.P." is the album's second-best track and its most decisive stylistic turn. The tempo drops and the arrangement thins, and the group leans into a cooler, more atmospheric register that sits somewhere between a flex and a threat. Bang Jeemin and Ryu Sarang, who contributed lyrics to "INFINITY," show up noticeably in the album's second half - their writing credit marks the group's first visible step toward creative ownership, and it's a meaningful one. "INFINITY" benefits from it: the track has a personal specificity that the earlier songs don't need to have.
Where the record loses ground is "ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS" and "LEAN ON ME." Both feel like they were written for a different group - the former a punchy but generic chant track, the latter a closer that resolves all the tension the first three songs built without doing anything interesting with it. "LEAN ON ME" is the album's weakest moment: a ballad-adjacent piece that asks for emotional investment the preceding 10 minutes didn't quite ask you to make. The tonal shift isn't a problem; the lack of connective tissue between this and "METRONOME" is.
At five tracks and under 14 minutes, SET THE TEMPO doesn't have room for dead weight. Two of its five songs are dead weight. What it does with the other three - particularly the title track - is strong enough to matter, and the member-written material signals where the more interesting next chapter might go. The question is whether WakeOne and Teddy let them fully get there, or whether izna keeps building toward a record that fills all five slots at the level "METRONOME" establishes.
SET THE TEMPO is out now on WAKEONE Entertainment.
