Song Review:: GPP: ATE!

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  • Release date: 2026 May 20
  • Album tracklist: ATE!
  • Album runtime: 3 minutes

 If you missed their debut back in December, then thank you for reading this one. This is SM’s new Japanese girl group, they were all over twenty at time of debut, and the song was fire, but SM needs to give them more money for their music videos. Welcome to the show. 

Honestly, this feels like a mildler version of something that could have come from f(x) back in the day. This is very synthy and electronic, but there’s a vibrancy to it that feels bolder than either of their two most recent Korean girl groups, if that makes sense. There’s also something a little first-season-of-Buffy about the song that it feels like a fight scene. And there’s a dance break. I’m pleased.

Normally I’d be crawling out of my skin a little bit over the amount of repetition with the “ate” line, but it’s not long enough to make me bored, and it’s interrupted by singing. The other thing is the “5-6-7” pause “we ate” line. I can’t decide if I like the choice to have that pause be as long as it currently is. The pause is long enough to fit the word “eight”, and then we have a play on words, but there’s something unsettling about the rhythm there. I’m not entirely sure what it is, which is fine and why I don’t know if I like the length or not. Their voices are well-supported, which is what I want from them anyway.

SM! You mean you actually gave them a proper music video? They had a budget? Visually, this feels like it's leaning a little closer to a Girls' Generation song than f(x), but it's still got that strong SM lineage you expect (especially because it's almost Red Velvet coded with the black and intense outfits juxtaposed with the pastels on the alien planet.

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