Infinite Destiny, a limited-edition product coming soon from (pick one) a multinational corporation’s a) comics-publishing arm, b) fragrance development arm, or c) speculative theology arm.

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[5.70]

Anthony Easton: I await for this on the soundtrack to Fast 7.
[5]

Madeleine Lee: Full disclosure: Infinite is the boy band to whom I have devoted my life and my Last.fm Top Tracks Overall chart, so my score down there might as well be this. So what does “Destiny” sounds like through stan earmuffs? The context is key: it’s a follow-up to spring’s bland “Man In Love,” a return to the dark and moody style they’re best liked for, and a launching pad for their fall world tour. It’s also Infinite’s first single in three years not by Sweetune, the production camp whose retro obsessions and ear for melody have guided the group’s sound from their debut. Rather than starting from scratch, rookie producers Rphabet make the wise decision to emulate Sweetune’s best touches – soaring canned strings, judicious use of falsetto – to complement their own tendency toward EDM squeals and wubs. It lacks the refinement of its predecessors, the sleek efficiency of “The Chaser” or the elegance of “Paradise,” and at times it’s unbearably noisy, verging on tasteless. But it has immediacy on its side: every moment threatens to be the one that breaks, and Infinite’s vocals have never sounded this raw on recording. It’s not built to last, but when I hear the opening strobes from a stadium floor, the moment will be all that matters.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Reminds me of a less urgent “The Chaser,” and also a less good version of that song.
[5]

Iain Mew: Some of what Ian said about One Direction and third hand experience applies here for me, but even coming in with vague non-musical positive feelings towards them I’m still surprised by how good “Destiny” is. After an intro that sounds like a media player crashing, the twin assault of theatrical strings and bass wobble is enjoyable, but together with the gap-filling piano they’re busy enough to leave little room for the group’s vocals to maneuver. Yet Infinite get across lots of personality within that space, the highlight being the lovely backing vocals and the way that they play the final chorus as slick continuation even as the music risks driving it to melodrama.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The strings build the suspense, and for once falsetto serves its purpose: a release. The urgent piano helps.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Max Martin with less subtlety. I would have found that statement puzzling earlier too.
[5]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Your standard issue slice of nine-member boyband devotion, with all the middling peaks and deep valleys of vocal talent you’d expect: from the mechanical to the on-bended knee to open-eye-focused rapping to someone violently choking on the words “for you” (twice!). Interestingly, the track appears to have swallowed whole select pieces of Ed Banger’s late-noughties output with the splashes of heavily filtered house judders. If the heavily neutered voice bookending the vocal performances isn’t howling “do the dance”, it’s one hell of a Xerox. Somewhere, Justice fan Swizz Beatz is doing his impressed pointing dance.
[5]

Brad Shoup: I wish they’d kept the intro going; it’s a hangover informed by a city block. The settled-upon path is trance piano jostling with wubs and approximated strings. It’s a mess, but analogous to the problem with a large idol troupe: you have to show off everyone. Sure, you just want to see Vin Diesel or George Clooney, but they make you check in with Santos and Dell first. It’s mostly a three-man show, with Sungjong knocking L and Woohyun down with falsetto. There’s no need for the rap, which is true more times than it isn’t.
[6]

John Seroff: Though the Koreans certainly appear to do it better than anyone else right now, overinflated boy band anthem pop sounds equally mediocre regardless of the language.
[5]

Will Adams: There’s certainly value in those bass thwacks and staccato strings, but they’re part of an arrangement too dense to extract any of it. And that’s even before the strained vocals come into play. Pushed to the front and stacked like blocks, they only add to the chaos.
[4]