Song Review:: LE SSERAFIM: HOT- HOT

• Release date: 2025 March 14

• Album tracklist: Born Fire, HOT, Come Over, Ash, So Cynical (Badum)

• Album runtime: 13 minutes

 It's been interesting watching the past year or so for LE SSERAFIM, watching how they've handled the various accusations leveled at them and watching how they've responded to other groups in the industry. It was somewhat of a tumultuous year, to be sure, but it certainly feels like they've lived, they've learned, and now they're moving on with their story with more XP to level up with than they had before, which is exactly as it should be as we go through life. 

And once again, HYBE, why are all of your artists putting out albums with songs that are barely two minutes long? I was upset about Enhypen, flabbergasted by TxT, baffled by Seventeen, infuriated for BSS, HxW, and Baekho, and I've now swung back to appalled for LE SSERAFIM. Stop making your artists have samples of songs as the full tracks! If it was one group, maybe two, I'd be simply upset with the understanding that it happens, but the number of your groups that are dropping albums with an average run time of less than three minutes (and this one is closer to two and a half) means that I don't get to blame the composers or producers, especially when some of them have proven track records of not writing short songs. This grievance instead has a common denominator with the groups: HYBE. The title track for this album is literally less than two and a half minutes. I'm not asking for a six minute song, although I wouldn't complain about it as long as it's also well written, but I'm just upset over this. 

To be clear, I'm not blaming any of the groups. This is fully directed at HYBE for taking what makes their groups good and removing uniqueness with the length.

Okay. Frustrated rant over, but I'm going to need to maybe listen to a book to reset my brain after this.

Good news about this song is that the beginning bit that is unceremoniously thrown to the side does return sort of during the chorus. So it's not completely abandoned in favor of the disco beat. The super low bass contributes well to the song, and there are interesting instruments that I can't quite identify, but it provides a texture to the song I wasn't expecting, so that's a pleasant surprise. 

Sigh. Look. I'm apparently not done being frustrated over this song because you can hear both vibrato and well-supported vocals. These are things I like. These are things I really appreciate to hear, especially from younger groups, so I'm pleased to hear them on that end. The problem is that I've tried to sit down and actually listen to this song about five times, which is why this is coming out so late (I actually started this on Friday and am not releasing it until Monday morning my time), but there's something about it that makes me zone out and filter the song out of my active attention. So, I decided to check on who wrote this song. And do you know what I noticed? Much like with my frustration over ILLIT, though LE SSERAFIM at least gets a song that's not a cotton candy song, one of the people who had a hand in writing this song is none other than Hitman Bang. Vocally, we're moving in a good direction as the song sounds somewhat comfortable for them to sing, but there's nothing bombastic about it. You're telling me that you have a trained opera singer and you're not going to use that? 

So to sum up, I'm frustrated because this is too short and lacks interesting or big choices in the writing, even though it has a lot potential with what is already there and with the quality of the members of the group. 

The music video adds almost half a minute and it's still shorter than three minutes. I recognize that emojis are unprofessional but 🙃.

It's a gorgeous music video. The stylists outdid themselves. I also love the fact that they start off in wedding dresses and do that part, and then move into something that reminds me a lot of Loki's cage after the events of the first Thor movie, which actually tracks pretty well with the Harley Quinn vibes I was getting off the music video for Crazy. There's a little bit of a heist feel to the music video, which I am always here for, and it's also a little bit weird, which I'm also here for. If this were an actual movie, I'd probably be interested in watching this.