KATSEYE didn’t just release an EP on August 14 — they released a mood board. WILD, the group’s third project under HYBE and Geffen Records, lands with five new songs joining the already-charting “PINKY UP” and “Animal,” and the fresh material is where the real story lives.
Start with “Hootie Frutti.” It opens with a burst of Portuguese and never really settles down from there, pulling from Latin pop textures while echoing the sultry, late-night atmosphere of tracks like Anitta’s collaborative hit “São Paulo.” Critics have been split on it in that particular way viral pop songs tend to invite — one reviewer called it an instant favorite, while others online dismissed it outright. That kind of divide usually means a song is doing exactly what it’s supposed to.
“Bel Air” pulls in the opposite direction entirely. It’s the EP’s ballad, built to give the group’s vocals room to stretch out, and it carries a genuine emotional weight the rest of the project doesn’t reach for. The song traces the unraveling of a relationship that once looked like an escape route, and it comes with a detail that’s likely to get music-nerd attention on its own: Charli XCX has a writing credit on it, working alongside producers Stefan Gräslund, Patrik Berger, Jarrad Rogers, and Martin Stilling.
Then there’s “That Way,” arguably the sleeper of the five. Built on funky basslines and confident vocal interplay, it’s been singled out by multiple outlets as one of the record’s most replayable moments — flirtatious, tightly written, and squarely aimed at fans who fell for the group’s 2025 breakout “Gabriela.” Where “Hootie Frutti” is chaos and “Bel Air” is heartbreak, “That Way” is KATSEYE simply sounding comfortable in their own skin.
Closing the standard tracklist is a tonal left turn: a slower, hazier cut built around a low, woozy beat that plays more like a slow-burning warning than an invitation. It’s a deliberate way to end the EP, trading the earlier tracks’ bravado for something moodier and more unresolved.
Rounding out the release is “Unloveu,” available exclusively through Target and select international editions, and it carries its own significance — it’s the first KATSEYE song written and produced by one of the group’s own members. Lara Raj built the track with Amy Allen and Ross Golan, two of pop’s most in-demand songwriters, and had teased the collaboration weeks ahead of release, telling fans it was something they’d been asking for since the group’s earliest days.
Taken together, the five new songs do a lot in a short runtime. WILD clocks in at under fifteen minutes across its standard tracklist, yet it moves through Latin-pop mania, cinematic heartbreak, flirtatious mid-tempo pop, and slow-burning menace without ever losing its thread. That range is very much the point. KATSEYE has built its identity on refusing to sit still in one lane, and WILD reads like a group testing exactly how far that identity can stretch before it snaps.
It also arrives at a complicated moment. The rollout is happening while members Sophia Laforteza and Manon Bannerman remain on leave from group activities, and whether Laforteza returns for the newly announced WILDWORLD Tour — 31 dates kicking off September 1 in Dublin — is still an open question. None of that has slowed the release machine. Between the new songs, a companion documentary, and a Demi Moore-featuring video for “Animal,” WILD is easily the group’s most ambitious rollout to date, and early reactions suggest the five new tracks alone are enough to keep the conversation going well past release day.
