The EP, more importantly, saw ENHYPEN bristling with a fresh sense of identity and conviction.īut, a second Manifesto instalment wasn’t to be: “This is the start of our Blood series,” they announced in their recent press conference, and Dark Blood indeed circles back to the vampiric cues of their debut. Last year’s Manifesto : Day 1 ’s single, “ Future Perfect (Pass the MIC) ” and feature track “ ParadoXXX Invasion ”, ended the run of hyphenated singles (“Given-Taken”, “Drunk-Dazed”, “Tamed-Dashed” and “Blessed-Cursed”), which had signified the offering of two paths or perspectives within their narrative.
A mere six months later, their first album – Dimension : Dilemma (and repackaged version, Dimension : Answer ) – attempted to balance fame and its rendering immortal of their younger selves onscreen with the tricky metamorphosis into early adulthood. They doubled down on EP, Border : Carnival (2021) three sets of visually opposing concept trailers and the heady “ Drunk-Dazed ” turning an unflinching lens on their newfound status as celebrities and artists. Two trailers (“ Choose-Chosen ”, “ Dusk-Dawn ”) and the debut single “ Given-Taken ” painted change and foreboding in dream-like greens and blues but also bloody reds and over-exposed frames that lent a queasily unsettling feel. Their debut record, Border : Day One unpicked the shift from trainees to idols, utilising allegory via a vampire narrative, which has waxed and waned throughout their discography, then expanded last year into a webtoon, Dark Moon: The Blood Altar, and Wattpad story of the same name. Their debut and subsequent releases created entwined dimensions, one forged in fantasy and the other, in their own reality, both imbued with the same kind of fraught, precarious uncertainty exacted upon the world by the pandemic. It may sound hyperbolic in 2023 but ENHYPEN (formed through I-LAND, a survival talent show that began mid-2020) were born into darkness, unleashed into a bewildered, furious and panicked world gripped by COVID-19. Since debuting in late 2020, their multi-layered, story-lead oeuvre has featured symbolism-heavy set production, sonic experimentations, a dizzying breadth of cultural references from Greek mythology to 90s videography, while even their name and logo, a play on ‘hyphen’, is embedded with a directive – ‘come together to connect, discover and grow’. But, thinking about it, the amusing irony of the blindingly white flatness is its utter paradox to the characterising wealth of colour, depth and texture in ENHYPEN’s work. It’s so stark that the band’s leader Jungwon (19), Heeseung (21), Jay (21), Jake (20), Sunghoon (20), Sunoo (19) and Ni-ki (17) look almost cut-out against it. Filming necessitates that behind them is an unbroken expanse of white wall.
They’re currently deep into a press day for their sixth Korean release, Dark Blood. “I think we improved and levelled up, for sure.” “ Engenes (their fandom) cheered us on so loudly that it gave us a mindset to work even harder onstage and challenge ourselves,” he says. Heeseung grins, shaking his silver-white hair from his eyes, aware of how much it added to their (already impressive) stage presence and, quite possibly, the plethora of fancam edits racking up millions of TikTok views. ENHYPEN are reminiscing over their first-ever tour, which ended its six-month run around Asia and North America in February.
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