After four years and an equal number of solo detours in the interim, Blackpink falls back into formation with almost suspicious ease on Deadline. The EP’s five songs are built around compulsive chains of interlocking parts—including big EDM drops and pouty girl-boss one-liners—predictably executed with factory-floor precision.
Given the context in which these songs arrive—with three of Blackpink’s four members now rising solo stars in their own right—the fact that the EP doesn’t exactly sound like a passion project isn’t surprising. Little of the material on Deadline ranks among the most adventurous in the group’s catalog, but the bigger issue is how unengaging most of it is on its own terms.
Outside of the high-kick, kick-ass anthem “Jump” that opens the EP, little amounts to much of note here. Even setting aside the emptiness of the lyrics and the glaring fact that a five-track reunion is about as low-effort as these releases get, Deadline steadily slumps in quality after its opening salvo. “Keep your expectations/Underneath the pavement,” Jisoo coos on the lifeless “Fxxxboy,” and it’s best to approach these songs with the same mindset.
There are stray moments of interest: a swirl of engine-revving synths on “Go,” and one burst of bubblegum bliss during the pre-chorus of the brassy “Me and My” (“If we ain’t in the spot, ain’t a party/We gon’ make it pop like a lolly,” Rosé and Jisoo sing, complete with a bilabial click). From there, things nosedive with a cornball fusion of glam rock and synth-pop (“Champion”) and B-side-level balladry (“Fxxxboy”) that falls short of what the group is capable of.
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