Promotions for ENHYPEN’s new album ROMANCE: UNTOLD kicked off with ENHYPEN UNTOLD Concept Cinema, where the lead single, “XO (Only If You Say Yes),” stands as a symbol of the happiest moments of the ENHYPEN members’ lives. In the video, the boys are vampires, and the humans are trying to exterminate them. Before being chased out by the humans, ENHYPEN, addressing the only human who accepts them, sings to Chloe: “XO kiss me / Don’t say no.” You would expect that the opening words to “XO (Only If You Say Yes),” a love song, would ring in pure joy, but when the vampires sing this song, the line shows they’ve made up their minds to be in a love that can only end in tragedy. To these seven vampires, “XO” represents a fleeting moment of supreme happiness in lives otherwise doomed to misfortune. To humans, lines like, “I’ll even pluck the sun, the moon for you,” may come across as cliché, but for vampires, whose time in the human world could be cut short at a moment’s notice, love is such a precious thing that promising the sun to someone, even if fulfilling that promise will end in their demise, makes perfect sense. And so, the object of their desire becomes the “only god in my universe,” and “when dusk falls,” they promise to “make all your dreams come true.” When a human says, “I’ll be your genie,” it’s a simple expression of love, but for the much more powerful vampires, it’s a serious vow. For humans, “XO” is just a song that captures the amazing feeling of being in love, but for ENHYPEN, it allows them to sing words of love that can’t be spoken. They want to do everything for the one they desire—and they have the power to do so. And yet, underpinning this promise of happiness is an uncertainty accompanying the fact that they could vanish into dust at the blink of an eye.

Before the album moves into the joyous “XO (Only If You Say Yes),” we get the prologue track “Moonstruck” describing a “moment dyed in darkness.” In this dark, mysterious soundscape, ENHYPEN frames their love as “our little secret,” while they hope that “tonight will be eternity”—a desire to take what is almost a fleeting moment in an eternal life and make it last forever. The funky “XO” opens with a merry melody that exudes all the happiness and excitement that comes with being in love—one that carries through all the way to the end of the song. But the vocals, almost lingering in the air like an aftertaste, and the touch of melancholy that builds with each repetition of the main riff, coat the song with a layer of sadness. And the melody, coming down from the highest note on the line, “you’re the only god in my universe,” arrives at the climax somewhat deflated as it moves down the scale. If the lyrics to “XO” are about the person you love, everything else about it—the arrangement, the vocals, the choreography, the ENHYPEN UNTOLD Concept Cinema video—conveys the deepest feelings these vampires would express, if only they were able to. Meanwhile, the track “Brought The Heat Back” explores the kind of jealousy that can easily arise in a relationship: “Who’s that guy you just said hi to? / Why were you smiling like that?” The vampires, though, “never felt this kinda feeling,” and it builds in intensity until their “head’s spinning” and they “can’t hide it, dammit.” The composition behind “Brought The Heat Back” is so exhilarating it’s practically overwhelming, the funky beat rapidly evolving in an expression of unrestrained emotion, and culminating later in the song with a whole group of voices singing along. All these run-of-the-mill human emotions—happiness, sadness, jealousy—are novel, mind-bending experiences for vampires. The concept photos for ROMANCE: UNTOLD released in advance of the album depict ENHYPEN in an everyday light, like doing their laundry at a laundromat in the ENGENE version. Aside from being unrealistically handsome, their lives as seen in these photos seem no different from those of ordinary—human—men, but then there’s HEESEUNG’s t-shirt, with the words, “buried alive.” For these supernatural beings, who never truly die, nor ever truly feel alive, commonplace tasks like going to the laundromat or the corner store represent extraordinary moments in their lives. What might come across as mundane activities for most people, when experienced in such heightened detail as is the case for vampires, become events on the timeline of a love they very well may never be able to experience again—which makes “XO” a vampiric love song with a simple, memorable pop-song melody, but with an acute eye toward all the intricate, subtle feelings tied up in love. The vampires’ sincerity comes across crystal clear on ROMANCE: UNTOLD thanks to the sincerity of the production behind its songs. ENHYPEN has become a group who can take any song and make it their own by putting their unique twist on it. Even when it comes to more mellow pop songs, the boys’ distinctive trademark is there: a blend of upbeat dance songs with deep, earnest love. With ROMANCE: UNTOLD, the group has taken the world they meticulously built up in DARK BLOOD and ORANGE BLOOD and perfected a genre perhaps best labeled “vampire pop.”

In “Polaroid Love,” one of ENHYPEN’s most well-known love songs, they sing, “It’s like a Polaroid love / Love, that old-fashioned emotion.” Here and elsewhere, the group has often sung about trying to avoid falling in love. Despite how firmly they held onto this position in the past, when it comes to ROMANCE: UNTOLD, they’re hopelessly in love. Scattered throughout the album are lines like, “crazy over you” (“Moonstruck”), and, “just like that I’m going going going crazy” (“Brought The Heat Back”), suggesting that such emotions might indeed drive them to the point of madness. In “Hundred Broken Hearts,” they risk everything for love, vowing to “give my everything to protect your heart.” But everything ENHYPEN wants to do for love on this album requires the other person’s “permission.” The boys traverse this idea in “XO (Only If You Say Yes)” as they move from the intro (“Kiss me / Don’t say no”) to the second verse (“Can I kiss you? / Can I hug you? … Would you kiss me? / Would you hug me?”). Being so infinitely considerate towards someone like that might be a sign that they’re absolutely crazy about that person, but when it comes to being with the person who holds “the one and only key to make me move” in “XO,” the ENHYPEN members are gentlemen who present no danger to others. ROMANCE: UNTOLD holds onto what makes the typical vampire romance story so alluring while also updating the image of masculinity and adapting to modern views on romance through vampire symbolism: the promise that, no matter who you are or what your circumstances are like, the relationship will develop only how and when you’re ready for it to, and that it will possess the sense of security that all romantic relationships must. While there’s room for passion and romance in every moment in life, we have to feel safe and secure in our life before true romance can blossom. And in that, it becomes clear that both the vampires, and ENHYPEN themselves, are truly ready for love.

Produced by HEESEUNG and featuring contributions from all the ENHYPEN members, the track “Highway 1009” opens with the words, “We started under a clear blue sky / New beginnings full of smiles / But hiding behind the excitement / Our hidden anxieties.” Maybe they’re singing from the vampires’ point of view, but it also sounds like thoughts and feelings that truly belong to the ENHYPEN members themselves—boys who came together through an audition show and have grown with each other over the past four years—as they’ve experienced extraordinary events that border on the surreal while achieving such great success. There’s been days “when I’m sick and tired,” as they sing, but they “can get back up” again thanks to their fans, and now they’re promising those same fans, through this song written specially for them by the members of the group, that they’ll “be there, be your engene”—a direct reference to ENGENE, the name of the fandom. Having pledged to always make their fans happy while stamping out the occasional feelings of precariousness and uncertainty, ENHYPEN, now four years in, are asking their fans to “stay with me forever.” The vampires in this latest album, and the real-life members of ENHYPEN, have become one. The vampires in ROMANCE: UNTOLD may not be real, but the idols portraying them have something that you would only ever expect from vampires: a quality of fearlessness in the face of anything, ready to give everything, yet just as shy and uncertain as they hand over “the one and only key to make me move.”