Best New Music: June 2025
A ranking and review of the best new releases from K-pop, J-pop, C-pop, and T-pop artists!
#20: Ian Chan, “The Weeping Tree”
In this moving ballad, Ian Chan takes on the voice of a tree, describing his presence in a loved one’s life as valuable and loyal but taken for granted. His mourning over his limited ability to reach a loved one and return physical affection takes the form of absorbing rainwater: “Embrace is so, so hard / I do not have real arms / To have all your tears wiped.” His devotion takes the form of gifts: flowers, shade, a view from a bedroom window, and a place to “water when lonely” or bored. His commitment to being a refuge and a resource for someone through thick and thin, through bountiful and bare-branch seasons alike, is reaffirmed through the song’s solemnity, yet his delivery is faster than expected. He crams in syllables as if acutely aware of how fast winter is approaching. He sings about “furthering [his] roots” as if to make his presence evergreen, but he also sings about “Learning that [he] exist[s] to lose” his leaves. He sings both as if time is running out and as if he has all the time in the world, and both takes on the metaphor can ring true. Personifying a tree could have easily sounded plain silly, but instead, his thoughtful words and voice make the effort full of life.
#19: Jeff Satur, “Tell Me The Name”
With his suave and brooding appearance, Jeff Satur looks like a romance novel cover come to life! But the appeal of “Tell Me The Name” goes far beyond attractiveness. His voice and facial expressions undergo near-instantaneous yet significant shifts. The concerned and doting look in his eyes while bandaging a lover’s wounds is just as believable as the bitterness and rage in those eyes towards those who caused them. In tender moments and vicious fight scenes alike, he convincingly plays a complicated, vengeful lover. Attention to detail completes his role immersion, especially his striking post-bridge high note and the stuttering of certain letters. The latter emphasizes that his threats aren’t empty; he makes himself crystal-clear that he means it!
Thanks to Jeff Satur’s all-around talent, what would otherwise be a cliche “damsel in distress” story is elevated to something worth picking out of a crowd.
#18: KANGDANIEL, Glow to Haze
KANGDANIEL saves the best for last on Glow to Haze, sounding predictably great but unexpectedly more mature in “Little Bit Lost.” The best thing about this comeback, though, is its meaning-packed “Episode” rom-com/mystery music video. As he sings about wishing a loved one would stop being so evasive and tell him more than just “the little episodes” of which smalltalk consists, he takes audiences through their own kind of mental gymnastics. He plays a time-traveler at the “Metaphor Museum,” searching for its missing knight while dealing with the other exhibits coming to life after hours! The dynamic between KANGDANIEL and this on-the-loose knight keeps changing. They at first seem like friends who lightheartedly tease each other, and KANGDANIEL tries to take off the knight’s helmet before being swatted away. Things escalate quickly, and the knight turns into the one chasing him, while holding a sword! They seem to be back on good terms once KANGDANIEL repairs the knight’s suit of armor in a quiet moment away from the crowd. He adds flowers to it and hands the knight a bouquet, leading audiences to assume he is doing so to win over his crush. But this is not an “enemies to lovers” story, and his efforts are just to empower the knight to stop hiding underneath the disguise. The plan works, and the helmet finally comes off, revealing a human woman underneath. Her love interest is not KANGDANIEL, and he watches from a distance as her lover embraces her. The pair turns into a statue while embracing, which doubles as a mid-courtyard fountain that is one of the museum’s main attractions.
What starts out like a madcap Night at the Museum copycat turns into a twisty love story, then into a deeper story about how works of art can be made more whole after breaking and undergoing makeovers. The video also makes the case that some of the best “episodes,” in love and in life, come from letting someone else be the protagonist.
#17: O3ohn & Car, the garden, TWO
For those searching for something new and different to add to their playlists but unsure what that “something” is, O3ohn and Car, the garden have them covered! It is more of an atmosphere than an album at times, with vibes doing more of the talking than actual words! Songs like “BIG BIRD” dress up a cry for help in a groovy exterior, which matches the music video’s unconvincing “Everything is fine and normal” pretense! They repeatedly make comments without elaborating: “BETTER” is about seeing things “better now” but does not say what “better” means or looks like, “Eureka!” does not specify what the duo’s “Eureka!” moment entails, “WORLD” does not explain what has led them to finally “see the world” and “feel the world” more fully, and “WEAR AWAY” includes lines like “No one sees the path I’m carving.” Instrumental-only periods in songs like “WEAR AWAY” add to the sense that this album is made for an audience of “TWO.” The duo have ample time to elaborate but instead leave those not in on their jokes none the wiser. They have fun when stoking confusion and letting it linger.
Since each song on TWO is an outlier, none of them are true outliers, a subversion that suits the ways so many disparate details congeal into this project’s final form.
#16: ATEEZ, GOLDEN HOUR : Part.3
Frankly, ATEEZ’s best eras are their most high-energy and stadium-ready ones, like “WONDERLAND” and “Fireworks (I’m The One).” That being said, this laid-back comeback is worth appreciating, both for its lead single and the true-to-ATEEZ B-sides. The group’s go-tos that remain include MINGI’s “Fix on!” catch phrase, a tone-shifting outro, and genre-blending that balances chill vibes with higher-energy ones (a mix best reflected in the R&B/hip-hop “Lemon Drop”).
After “Lemon Drop,” deeper and richer flavors emerge in “Masterpiece,” on which all eight members harmonize about life being a beautiful and never-ending art project; “Castle,” an imaginative take on the search for solace; the aforementioned conclusion, “Bridge : The Edge of Reality;” and the best of the bunch, “Now this house ain’t a home.” In the surprisingly candid confessional, the group opens up about a downside of heightened fame: an increased metaphorical distance from home. With lyrics like “In time, we all get taller / While sometimes feeling smaller” and “A sin of stacking up new homes without knowing the worth of the old,” they reflect on what is lost when people grow up and grow “too big” to stay in the places where they had their humble beginnings. They seek a place to feel grounded again, a true “home,” where they can block out the world’s “noisy voices” that “judge everything.” While more serious than most ATEEZ songs, it stays true-to-them with both authentic openness and melodic multitudes.
#15: Julia Peng, Incompletely Fully Grown
Julia Peng treats her voice like the adaptable instrument it is. It reverberates, gets amplified, retreats, changes keys, and plays ping-pong with instruments throughout this album. There is variety in instruments besides her voice, too, and piano ballads (“Unfairness,” “Attachment,” “When I Fall in Love,” “Every Way of Love”) come before and after livelier offerings (like “I’m Lucky Enough” and “Hide and Seek”). All the while, she assesses her past with good-faith efforts and good-natured self-deprecation.
In the eponymous opening track, she sings, “love is the most troublesome,” and she ends with “Every Way of Love,” a song about an imprinting of that “troublesome” love onto an immortal song. It’s a self-aware note to end on, conveying both her knowledge from 20/20 hindsight about the consequences of falling in love and her knowledge that she will willingly get into the “trouble” of a romance again and again! She knows love will never unfold like it does in her daydreams, and as she puts it in “Unfairness,” “I can’t compare with myself in my imagination”! But she fills her daydreams with love stories anyway. “I’d rather be stupid than not worth it,” she declares in “When I Fall in Love”! She decides love is worth getting hurt over: “It’s all [for] my own good.” She also admits if she sees “loneliness standing on the roadside,” she will “warmly” greet it (“Social Phobia”), and she frames her fear of the unknown as less acute than her fear “of not being able to love” (“Attachment”). Overall, Incompletely Fully Grown is a distinct take on what it’s like to be a hopeless romantic!
#14: SUPER★DRAGON, SUPER X
SUPER X is a zesty mix of EDM, pop, rock, and rap, and those ingredients never present themselves in isolation. Brand-new songs and pre-release singles alike bring the heat: EDM bangers like “Hallucination of Love” and “Downforce,” the relatively abrasive “Dark Heroes,” the rock song “Omaejanai,” the sudden tropical twist that is “Good Times & Tan Lines,” the rugged-voiced “DOG,” and more. The group also keeps people guessing with interludes that are mere chaos agents, rather than chapter introductions or conclusions. With the sounds of texting, a phone buzzing, sirens, screeching brakes, beeping, and more, the only clear message consistency is “Ready or not, here we come, and you’ll never know from which direction!”
#13: COOING, DREAMER
In DREAMER, reality checks and anecdotes from dreams commingle, as COOING sings mellifluously about someone she would be better off leaving in the past. “Even knowing it’s a lie, I fall for it again and again,” she admits in “half-moon,” a song about being blinded by the moon’s bright light and therefore not seeing a relationship clearly. Now that she is single again, she can see better but feels like a piece of her is gone. She sings about the same mix of relief and grief post-breakup in “PSYCHO,” admitting she “just call[ed] it ‘love’ to ease [her] mind.” She further recognizes that she has been “living the lies” in “Masquerade,” which is about her “entire life [having been] lost” behind veils of deception. The “PSYCHO” music video speaks to her ambivalence. She cheerfully dubs herself a “lost butterfly” who is grateful to know who she should fly away from: her “psycho” ex! But she acts like the “psycho,” dressed for a wedding while stalking a frightened-looking man! It can be seen as an “eye for an eye” tactic; if he has been living rent-free in her head, she might as well give him a taste of his own medicine! However, the sympathy in some of her songs offers a different explanation: being with him because he has no one else. In “Please God (sketch),” she pleads, “Please God, save him from hopelessness / He did nothing wrong… There’s no one who cares…” She goes on to say that she laughs at his jokes because “That’s all” she can do for him.
Ultimately, DREAMER pities someone and expresses that pity in ways ranging from pained to playful!
#12: 4EVE, GLOW
Recent years have shown a major rise in interest in girl groups from around the globe, from P-pop icons BINI to Japanese act f5ve. The T-pop group 4EVE deserves just as much buzz, and GLOW proves it. The EP shows that 4EVE can be relied on for catchy pop bops, some with smooth harmonies and R&B leanings and others in a trendy, short, hyper-pop form. They can also be relied on for confidence-boosting lyrics, asserting the importance of sticking to a “Girl code” (in songs like “Keep a Secret”) and not wasting time on bad dates (like in “Snooze”: “You tried to take all my energy / When I’m just protecting my inner peace”). A third 4EVE guarantee are music videos that range from aesthetic dreams (like the pastel- and flower-filled “Snooze”) to strange spectacles (like “LIKE YOU,” which involves turning into Zodiac-inspired creatures!). Some videos are a bit of both extremes, like “Keep a Secret.” The members grab attention in sparkly party outfits and then hold that attention with a sinister plot twist!
4EVE’s three biggest strengths - sonic variety, empowering lyrics, and attention-grabbing music videos - provide a new audience with multiple entryways onto the path to becoming fans, and all girl group enthusiasts ought to keep this act on their radar.
#11: The Crane, Same Stories, Different Narratives
These songs are not exactly confident, but they are not not confident either! The Crane does not tout his strengths nor wallow over his weaknesses. “This is me; nothing to be done about that” is essentially his message, and that comes through the loudest and clearest in “take it or leave it.” He describes his many flaws: not being a fast learner (“[I]t took me / More than a decade / To see things that way”), showing disrespect (“Guess we all have to hurt some feelings sometimes”), and lacking the motivation to change for the better (“I’ll be just the same… I heard what you said / But my schedule is tight / And I don’t wanna change”). He learns the wrong lessons from his shortcomings, seeing them as story sweeteners, which explains why his music indulges in them instead of shunning them. He does so through theatrical flourishes, like haunting sounds in “Same Story” and “VILLAIN,” and surprisingly upbeat rhythms, like in “DISEASE.”
Because The Crane keeps his bad side around, his lyrics are often cyclical, like diary entries that keep being edited to circle back to previous ones. He sings about lacking inner “peace” in “Same Story,” then says “I found peace” in “DISEASE.” He sings about wanting to “Rewrite the plot” in “Same Story,” and he alludes to a fictional story in “VILLAIN” when he says “I died so you could get that loud applause.” He sings about his “soul” needing a “vacay” and later sings “I’m no saint” in “DISEASE,” and in “IGLOOOO,” he references a vacation and something holy again: “I’ll take you somewhere nice… days of our lives / Are nothing but a glimpse in an angel’s eyes.” Saying the same things in different ways reinforces how he stands by every word he says!
The Crane uses his foibles to justify, to avoid change, and to keep himself entertained, turning a self-defeating “story” into a witty and, indeed, very “different narrative”!
#10: Sakurazaka46, Make or Break (Special Edition)
Under the umbrella message of “You miss every shot you don’t take,” Sakurazaka46 give the thoughts and feelings of young adults the wonderfully odd musical equivalents they deserve! In “Renaimusou,” they compare the odds of success to a lottery and sports that are both worth playing: “If you don’t do anything, there won’t be any problems / But still, you have to try, [or else] nothing will be different from yesterday;” “The minimum requirement is to [do] the required batting.” The other songs have more atypical metaphors (not to mention more colorful instrumentals). In “Shindafuri,” they sing about how they would rather “play dead” than live in an inauthentic way: “Reject! I don’t like it! Sorry!;” “I can’t compromise on anything.” In “Minatoku Parsley,” they treat those as code words that indicate a pending confession. And in “Make or Break,” they cannot decide if love is more like a knife or a bumblebee, so they compare it to both!
With energizing instrumentals and offbeat analogies, this J-pop group has always stood out, and their latest work is no exception.
#9: DOYOUNG, Soar
As DOYOUNG digs deeper into the thematic terrain of his first album, YOUTH, on Soar, he also expands his “wings” stylistically. Both albums share a preference for band-music influences and a mix of rock-influenced pop and balladry, but Soar adds extra improvisational-seeming twists, folksy-yet-modern touches, and string flourishes. Soar also goes further with its analogies, adding “wind” to the list of go-to metaphors while still mentioning the “lights” and “waves” from YOUTH. Those “lights” and “waves” have sustained his spirit, and Soar elaborates on why and how. Soar is also a natural sequel to YOUTH in how it continues framing music as a memory preserver. In YOUTH’s “From Little Wave,” he describes “holding onto words,” and in “Lost In California,” he finds stability and solace in their meaning: “The only thing that doesn't change is this song.” In the Soar song “Sonnet,” he expresses gratitude for a “voice that [has] stayed”: “Leaning on a fading song… It becomes a little clearer.” Those memories that he seeks to keep “clear” come to him as naturally as a breeze, and in a Soar pre-release video, he sends “lucky letters” in the hopes that they will find the people who need them and reach them “like a rushing breeze.”
Besides describing wind in a positive way for its message facilitation, DOYOUNG shows appreciation for its invisible yet recurring and noticeable presence. It represents an endless empty space, a vessel with room to store as many memories as he wishes. This is why the main single “Memory” repeatedly uses a wind analogy, calling goodbyes “Empty yet beautiful” and describing memories coming back to him as “Long stories [that] flow on… When the wind blows.” The gorgeous piano ballad “Luminous” also treats wind as something to appreciate and to find freedom with the help of: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we / Were like the wind cutting through the air? / If we were free like the wind…” Furthermore, in “Sand Box,” he treats “raging wind and rain” as no deterrents during his “flight.”
Soar is proof of concept, encapsulating how DOYOUNG feels empowered to “spread his wings and fly” more frequently and farther than ever.
#8: PassCode, INSIGNIA
PassCode prove they are always in fighting form! With head-spinning speed and frequency, the electronic/pop/rock group balances guttural screams and metal-adjacent tendencies with periods of glitchy hyper-pop. Their words share their sound’s combustible energy: “Blaze up… Break out [of] the haze… Burn up the page!” (“MIRAGE WALKER”), “Dash out!... Shout loud!... Right now!” (“VIRIVIRI”), “So rise… Before all your time’s up” (“Freely”)... They are aggressive cheerleaders, wielding words of encouragement like weapons more than seeds to passively plant in people’s minds. The relentless advice-giving avoids getting annoying or tedious, though, thanks to both the all-consuming sound and some more inspired lyrical detours. They sometimes do prompt more than they provoke, describing the world as such a wild place that anything can happen, so they might as well shoot for the stars! The album opens with “DESTINEX,” on which they sing, “If you can’t see the future, make up the dream / No doubt, the world’s ungrounded, losing minds / Day by day, a revolution fantasy.” They repeat that stance at the end, in “Echoes”: “Because there is no deadline for dreams and hopes / I always want to believe.”
#7: ARTMS, <Club Icarus>
Some of the parallels between <Club Icarus> and a previous ARTMS release, <Dall>, are subtle, like the fact they whisper “Wait for me” in the <Dall> intro and say the word “Whisper” in the <Club Icarus> intro. Other parallels are more obvious, like repeated references to wings and to virtual connections; these carry symbolic value in both eras’ videos. Outside of linkages to the <Dall> era, <Club Icarus> shines for its flipping of a classic mythological script. The story of Icarus is, in short, about a death from getting too egotistic; Icarus flew too close to the sun, and his wax wings melted. ARTMS’s version of the story is a speculative sequel. What if Icarus did not die? What if his wings only partially melted? What if Icarus was redeemable? The short film shows how ARTMS see themselves in Icarus, broken but not beyond repair. Everyone can see themselves this way, and part of their healing process comes from wearing personalized wings and gathering at “Club Icarus” to find a sense of belonging. An extra clever bit of symbolism is a crushed milk carton on the ground, which has a “Missing Person” ad on it and milk spilled into the shape of wings on its sides.
In addition to symbolism, the short film intricately weaves tales of rebirths through animations, a mix of black-and-white and colorized scenes, and stark character transformations (compared to the <Dall> era’s “Birth” video). As for the album itself, <Club Icarus> is the perfect soundtrack for the self-described “Club for the Broken.” The intro sounds like angels’ dramatic theme song is borrowed and remixed by an eccentric DJ, and unexpected mixtures remain from there on out!
#6: ILLIT, bomb
This era solidifies ILLIT’s lovable brand of vintage-meets-modern whimsy, with hook-oriented songs, cute and innocent lyrics, and arts-and-crafts aesthetics (with crayon drawings in a teaser video and the “little monster” video text appearing as embroidered artwork). They also prove to have cross-cultural appeal: “Billyeoon Goyangi (Do the Dance)” gets its name from a Korean expression about feeling like an out-of-place cat, and they compare themselves to that cat while singing about crush-related jitters in French and over a French house instrumental. Besides the cat analogy, ILLIT use cute and childlike descriptions involving colors, a carnival, and “little monsters.” Examples of the first two include comparing crushing to the “pink thrill” of a theme park visit, pulling a “pink lever” that triggers feeling “jellyous” (slang for “jealous”), and envisioning a nighttime picnic with a “Purple sky” that is a “blueberry dream” in “bamsopoong.” As for “little monsters,” those take the form of gummy bears in the “little monster” video, and the group sings about “gobbling up” those stand-ins for their doubts and fears!
What makes ILLIT’s state of “Oh my!” appealing is how perpetual it is. These self-described “magical girls” have and enjoy crushes, but they do not need to “act cool” and win over those crushes to have a good time. The “Do the Dance” music video shows that, when their feelings take and keep a firm grip on the wheel. They fly off of their five-person bicycle, float through the air looking awestruck at the sight of their crush, give in to their compulsion to “do a little dance,” and continue that dance even when back on the ground in public places! They do not stop because their crush looks, at best, unamused by the scenes they make!
This era shines because ILLIT refuse to suppress any part of their sparkling personalities!
#5: Ahn Dayoung, WHERE IS MY FRIEND?
WHERE IS MY FRIEND?, like Finnegan’s Wake, is not a story about dreams as they are conventionally perceived. Instead, dreams are “collapsing,” “despairing,” and something from which people “cannot wake.” In other words, some dreams are secretly nightmares by another name. The reverse might also be true, and Ahn Dayoung’s belief in that is expressed throughout an album about a lifetime spent searching.
The repetitive portions of WHERE IS MY FRIEND? reflect the tediousness of daily life, and the cavernous songs reflect the empty feelings within that life. Times when additional voices join Ahn Dayoung’s (like in “came from the mattress,” a song during which she frets over having no “game plan”) represent solidarity in that struggle. Other songs strip away background layers, enhancing the sense that she is enduring something alone and is daunted by the future’s endless unknowns. As for the lyrics, they tend to leave questions hanging: “Do I truly want to fade away?,” she asks herself in “happy asphalt;” “Why so twisted?” she asks regarding people’s motivations in “yawn / survive 101.” She does not judge the answers, going on to say, “We walk away into the vast chaos, not knowing where we go / We all dive…” (emphasis added). Similarly, Finnegan’s Wake raises questions with each answer and vice versa, and it suggests a beginning is an ending and the reverse. The perfect representation of life’s convoluted yet cyclical nature is how the first and last lines in the album complete a single statement, like how the novel starts and ends with parts of a shared sentence.
WHERE IS MY FRIEND? ambitiously emulates both structural and thematic characteristics of Finnegan’s Wake, traits that have made the novel, like life itself, so revered yet difficult to comprehend.
#4: B.I, WONDERLAND
WONDERLAND is a vibrant reimagining of what it means to stay connected to one’s inner child. The album, full-length “Ferris wheel” music video, and short video clips that correspond to the B-sides all add up to a wise and wondrous story because of, rather than despite, its fragmented nature. The genres and moods vary as much as the video clips’ mediums: a video-game-like screen (“PARADE”), an animation (“Free fall”), crayon drawings (“Romance”), a sketch involving dancing with a mascot (“Hug Me”)... The clips speak to how varied the forms of memories can be, aligning with the deeper meaning behind the “Ferris wheel” video. In that video, after flipping a theme park’s “Closed” sign to “Open,” B.I rides the ferris wheel with a different version of himself. They share laughs and seem at ease together. A montage of settings sweeps audiences briskly through what are presumably the sites of other good times from B.I’s past - the beach, a flower field - and ends with the image of a castle. The castle’s glowing outline molds into the shape of the other B.I, and after he appears in clearer detail and offers the original B.I one last smile and wave, the other B.I fades into blackness. The original B.I leaves as the location representing his imagined world does too. However, something major has changed: As the original B.I walks back out of the theme park, his footsteps leave grass and flowers behind them. B.I has not just visited an old memory; he has drawn from it to “blossom” in the future more than ever.
Notably, the magical visit is not with his younger self, but his inner self. After all, the other B.I looks about the same age as the original. He sings, “Which way is right for me? / Since I stopped talking to the child inside me / I can’t quite grasp it,” but he has a new sense of direction and confidence after restarting talks with that inner child, and he is able to do so once he realizes the “Closed” sign to that mental state can once again be “Open.” He realizes he can take his inner child with him as he ages; he does not have to treat it like a static, dust-collecting memory stored in a mental drawer. He can continue to return to it, to draw new inspiration from it, and to join it in the “never-ending dance” that is “the turbulence of youth” (as he puts it in “PARADE”).
B.I further embraces impermanence in songs like “Hug Me” (“Maybe I valued unchanging things too much…”), “Romance” (in which he sings about a sandcastle, something with a short lifespan but a presence that brings joy while it lasts), and “Free fall” (“A person’s whole story / Can be easily rewritten”). The main lesson is that the past can enrich the future, when seen as a set of moving pieces on an ever-expanding collage. B.I sums up that lesson in “Stopwatch”: “Even if it’s a mess, I feel alive.”
#3: Zior Park, A BLOODSUCKER
A BLOODSUCKER is a macabre psychoanalysis. Zior Park does not know who he would be outside of his characters, and this era explores who the person behind his many past personas might be - despite, ironically, him playing a new persona as he tries to figure it out. He questions what term suits him best throughout the album (which, notably, is not named after “the bloodsucker,” putting some distance between him and that title). Is he a “VILLAIN”? A “MASOCHIST?” Something he creates when “There are no more episodes,” as he puts it in “TWISTED FANTASY”? When he does run out of “episodes,” he wonders whether he “should step back on stage” (“VILLAIN”) or act like “this story’s better left untold” (“KEEP OUT!”). He describes reaching a story’s “ultimate climax” in “MOONLIGHT,” and that final song includes this key lyric: “I just realized the meaning of true love.” This is after he reassures someone, “You said you felt like / A supporter in my movie / Don’t think like that… I’ll make you the main cast.” The counterargument to viewing A BLOODSUCKER as a “from monster to human” story is how he frames this very human ending: as a piece of a scripted production. Therein lies the crux of his problem: Every happy ending in his life seems at least partially contrived. The question remains: Who is Zior Park really?
In the “TWISTED FANTASY” music video, Zior Park plays a Dr. Frankenstein-like character who brings a lover to life repeatedly - even once during that lover’s funeral! - but calls himself the true monster. He also implies he is the monster when his voice comes out of the lip-synching lover’s mouth, and when his face appears on the bodies of funeral attendees! He sings with deranged giddiness about what extreme trouble he could cause to regain his lover’s attention and sympathy: “Should I get hit by a car?... I like this plan!” Although he sees himself as a sick and twisted person, there are moments when it seems like the “real monster” is someone else; he might be possessed by an external force, rather than monstrous by nature. A high-pitched, cartoonish voice joins him in both “TWISTED FANTASY” and “CHLOE,” and he seems to doubt how monstrous he truly is when asking why people aren’t scared of him in “KEEP OUT!” (“Why do you keep laughing at me?”) and “VAMPIRE HOTEL” (“I could hurt you / Aren’t you afraid of me?”). On the other hand, in “KEEP OUT!,” he says, “You already expect that I’m a bad guy,” and in “DANCING WITH CHEMICALS,” he says, “Your friends said, ‘Just leave him / He’s a bloodsucker.’” Is he only acting like a monster because some people perceive him as one? Is being monstrous a self-fulfilling prophecy, rather than an innate quality of his? He doesn’t want to be like this, but it remains an open question whether or not he realizes there is a way out, that a lot of his urges to be “monstrous” are actually self-imposed.
As creepy and dramatic as A BLOODSUCKER and the “TWISTED FANTASY” music video are, they are Zior Park’s most emotionally real releases to date. He is no longer just communicating through elaborate characters and setups; he is now deconstructing those people and places to figure out where they start and where he begins. Perhaps Zior Park has created such a vast audiovisual realm that he has started to feel like he could be anyone, so he feels like no one in particular. A BLOODSUCKER makes a bizarre but convincing case that he has made lots of room for creative exploration but has forgotten to make space for himself while doing so.
#2: PoLin, Fragments of Becoming
With rich arrangements and piercing, palpable emotions, PoLin sings about his relentless desire to live life to the fullest. From the hooting-and-hollering-filled romp that is “Let Me Move On” to the devastating “Shattered Bliss,” which uses gospel influences to amplify its sense of biblical emotional proportions, the album is dramatic, delightful, and everything in between. The soundscapes might be full, but the lyrics are often succinct. PoLin has a knack for cutting to the emotional core, with insightful yet short statements that leave listeners deep in thought: “Living restlessly for the sake of mourning” (“Perfectly Loss”), “years are like thieves” (“Honey”), “Happiness and grievances are [both] souvenirs” (“Close Yet Apart”), “Fate is an appointment” (“How Are You”)... The best examples of so few words speaking so many volumes are in “Fragments of Becoming,” including “I took the risk of crying” and “There is nothing more comforting than repairing.” The last song circles back to that sentiment, celebrating how all of life’s beautiful messes that are addressed in the songs before it have led to seeing the world anew, with “Miracle Eyes.”
#1: ENHYPEN, DESIRE : UNLEASH
As written about at length previously, ENHYPEN’s sprawling narrative is so much more than a vampire story. It uses vampires as a conduit for deep messages, and those messages remain relevant in DESIRE : UNLEASH, through the music videos, songs, and short film. Their vampire characters continue to raise questions regarding the following: what meaning life can have if it has no specific start or endpoint, what kind of legacy someone can leave if they never leave, what it truly means to be human, what immortals miss out on when they have no sense of space and time to firmly live within, and what it really means to have an insatiable craving.
The short film is worth many re-watches to catch all of the Easter eggs and other key details, but here are a few pivotal scenes that speak volumes.
JAKE appears on a late-night talk show (actually, JAKE and JAY repeatedly and instantaneously swap places, but that is a complicating narrative factor that will be ignored here for the sake of time!) and is asked why he, a vampire, is choosing to be on national television. He scans the audience and sees a glowing-eyed monster among the humans, although no one else seems to notice. He says, “Because I want to be seen. To remind you that I exist. To remind myself.” This brings to mind details from several previous eras: the “Interlude : Question” monologue (“Who am I? And what do I mean when I say ‘me’?”), a DARK BLOOD teaser (“You erased me”), and words in MANIFESTO : DAY 1 teaser pictures (“Reset Us,” “Me,” “Show You Who I Am”...).
Later in the interview, JAKE is asked what happens when a vampire falls in love. The creature telepathically gives an answer to JAKE. He says, “You desire to destroy the things you love.” Soon after that, the interview ends due to a power outage. The audience screams and flees upon seeing the vampire guest has disappeared and could be anywhere. Then, a handful of vampires take the audience’s seats. The talk show host, ganged up on by these vampires, faces a predictably lethal fate.
It is worth recalling the “Intro : Whiteout” monologue from the DIMENSION : ANSWER era, in which ENHYPEN say they have “either got to get through a brooding monster or a swirling tornado.” Not only could the glowing-eyed creature be that “brooding monster,” but this era’s “Outside” music video appears to represent the “tornado” option; it is set amidst debris and destruction.
Another monologue to remember is “Foreshadow”: “Days being chased… a long shadow fell before my eyes. A shadow in front of me no matter where the sun was. I realized… that infinitely deep, deep well of a shadow was the foreshadowing of the things to come…” Shadows are a key symbol in the ENHYPEN universe. In past eras, they are both mentioned in monologues and are characters on their own. This is most obviously the case in “Brought The Heat Back,” in which they “chase shadows” across time periods. In this era, “chasing shadows” plays a role in “Outside.”
Other reminders of key details from past eras in the new videos and/or short film: crushed cans (like in MANIFESTO-era teasers and the DARK BLOOD short film), an angel-like figure (like in “Drunk-Dazed”), a physical confrontation between members (like in the DARK BLOOD short film), and an explosion leading to shattered glass (like in “Future Perfect (Pass the MIC)”).
The DESIRE : UNLEASH era has plenty to enjoy for those unfamiliar with ENHYPEN’s deeper lore, too. Their musicianship is as dynamic as ever, and the “Bad Desire (With or Without You)” video is a sweeping piece of cinema.
Overall, this era proves why and how ENHYPEN have earned their now-global storytelling acclaim.
Stay tuned for rankings and reviews of the best new music of the YEAR so far!