Watch ENHYPEN Traverse the Days of Y2K in ‘Blessed-Curse’

South Korean pop group ENHYPEN returned earlier today with their album Dimension: Answer, a repackage of their 2021 studio LP Dimension: Dilemma. The record is led by the single “Blessed-Curse” and accompanied by a 2000s-inspired music video.

“Blessed-Cursed” blends Seventies-inspired hard rock, trap and hip-hop to deliver a fresh sound that we haven’t heard from the septet before. The powerful track outlines a search for individuality and freedom, breaking free of society’s rules to be yourself and pave your own way. The group criticizes the construct of ‘society,’ and what they once viewed as a blessing of stability, is now a curse that boxes them in: “In this fake blessing/ I wanna be wanna be on my way, I bet/ Boundaries holding me in/ To hell with your rules.” There are many references to iconic pieces of pop culture in the lyrics, including the Matrix Trilogy, that hint that the world is an illusion which keeps us from being our true selves: “Luxury draped on my body, blinding me like a blue pill.”

The music video is inspired by Y2K culture aka the late Nineties and early 2000s, beginning with ENHYPEN doing a new year countdown to welcome the year 2000. The music video is filled with early-2000s fashion and features iconic filming techniques from the era, like fisheye lens shots. It’s quite a deviation from the group’s usual elegant supernatural aesthetic, but plays seamlessly into their concept of vampires–almost acting as a flashback to when they welcomed a new millennium as immortals.

In addition to “Blessed-Cursed,” Dimension: Answer features “Polaroid Love,” and “Outro : Day 2,” an expansion to the track list of Dimension: Dilemma. The music video for “Blessed-Curse” also ends with a quick teaser promoting the group’s upcoming webtoon, Dark Moon: The Blood Altar, described as ‘a high school romance story about seven vampire boys who meet a girl with a secret.’