Album Review: Romance : Untold by Enhypen
A new album reflects Enhypen’s growing confidence in their image and corner of the Kpop market
Welcome back after the August holiday pause! I hope you’ve all had a lovely summer and are ready to head into the last four months of the year and all the exciting Kpop events and new releases that will entail! This week’s post is a bit late, but from next week we’ll be catching up on all the latest and greatest.
Something odd happened at the end of July - I was generally a pretty foul mood, and of the many, many Kpop comebacks that we were blessed with in July, the one album that stood out to me the most and that I actually enjoyed listening to all the way through several times was…Enhypen?!
That’s right, somehow these introverted vampire kings have put out one of the most compelling albums of July, beating out their much more seasoned competition. I’ve done an extensive deep dive into the history of Enhypen here, so I won’t bore you with a recap. The gist of it is: this seven-member boy band that debuted in late 2020 has had a strong growth trajectory. However, I had some questions about their journey so far, including highlighting a peculiarly weak debut, a weak Korean fanbase, and a slightly misjudged foray into hip-hop. I promised to keep an eye on them, and here we are!
Romance : Untold is Enhypen’s second studio album, and it was released on July 12, 2024. Mini albums are a big thing in Kpop, and a true studio album is relatively rare. Where mini albums may all belong to the same theme, a studio album usually sets a new tone or direction. Romance: Untold follows Enhypen’s “Blood” cycle of mini albums - Dark Blood and Orange Blood. I told you, they’re vampire kings!
So with a full length album to play with, I was afraid Enhypen might veer off into another unsuccessful experiment, but instead they appear to just be polishing the type of darker pop and R&B music they do best. There’s a lot that ties this album together sonically, including a pulsing bass throughout and lovely strong vocals.
The album starts with a splash - Moonstruck might be one of my favorite Enhypen songs ever. It’s a perfect Enhypen song, and I’m really surprised it hasn’t been released as a single. That being said, the lead single from the album XO (Only if You Say Yes) is also excellent, and we love consent! This is much more synthy than we usually get from a HYBE group, but I think it really works. It was written by American artist JVKE, and continues the tradition of standout Kpop tracks that are written by other pop stars (BTS’ Louder Than Bombs by Troye Sivan and Babymoster’s Like That by Charlie Puth).
Moving into “Your Eyes Only” we have a lighthearted R&B song which then takes a more melancholic turn on “Hundred Broken Hearts.” We dip back into synth pop with “Brought the Heat Back”, the second single off the album. Even though this is quite up beat and synth-y, there are moments where the melody dips into what sounds almost like a horror movie carnival soundtrack. Perfect Enhypen vibes!
The next track, “Paranormal” is a bit of an outlier - it sounds kind of like an emo-era TXT reject song, and I find the driving trap beat in the chorus off putting, but that could just be a me thing - I am very much less drawn to these super trappy Kpop songs now. “Royalty” is another upbeat track but perhaps is a little too similar to what we’ve already heard - it doesn’t particularly stand out. The album ends with a lovely group-writen and Heesung-produced fan service track in “Highway 1009.”
Since I am writing this review on a bit of a lag, I can also update you on how this album performed relative to other Enhypen releases. It was their best selling (over 2 million copies) and highest charting (number 1 in South Korea and number 2 on the Billboard 200) album ever, although this is slightly caveated by the release of 12 available versions. Lead single XO won one music show and is their second single to chart in the top 100 in Korea and their best result in international charts at number 84.
I can say I feel that this album reflects Enhypen’s growing confidence in their image and corner of the market. From an international perspective, it’s been a quite buzzy release - I’ve seen a lot of content on Instagram. In other words, their Korean presence is still surprisingly weak but their international buzz is increasing. I have always thought this group had a lot of potential, and it’s great to see them beginning to fully realize that potential.
4/5 - Recommend!