Enhypen understands the power of a great story. Whether it’s the group’s transformation into vampires captured in the track “Given-Taken” or using squares as portals in follow-up single “20 Cube (Let Me In),” the K-pop septet from Belift Lab’s music videos are not only aesthetically gorgeous, but also ripe with supernatural imagery, allusions, and symbolism. Now, as the group gears up to release their second mini-album, Border: Carnival, on April 26, they’re breaking new ground with a lyric video that toes the line between spooky and psychedelic.
The visuals, released on Monday (April 5), invite viewers into a dark world full of castles, bats, masquerade masks, and the ominous sounds of children singing before it explodes into a kaleidoscope of color and bouncy, psychedelic rock that envelops the senses. As the world drips and spins around the video’s protagonist, an underlying eeriness lingers within the vivid dreamscape as a blood-red moon and flames all flash briefly across the screen.
Border: Carnival not only marks Enhypen’s return, but it is also a continuation of their “Border” series that began last November with their debut LP, Border: Day One. The song which plays throughout, “Intro: Invitation,” is the first track on the upcoming album, allowing member Jake to set the tone with a magical, mysterious speech performed entirely in English.
“Purchasing pleasures in selling hours of dross here in the land of rebel powers. Gloriously decorated, an invitation calls to us from the carnival of the dazzling night,” he says. “So we beat on the door of this flipped world, brought here by fate, whether the harvest feast of light or a festival of blood. Time harmonizes laughs and screams.” He continues. “A dizzying flicker. A light that blinds and deceives. And from the great beyond that voice rings out again: ‘Here, come inside the castle. Take everything.’”
