As exciting as they have been frustrating, ENHYPEN have been the purveyors of almost all my concerns and critiques of HYBE’s recent musical direction. The heavy vocal mixing and often muddled production has left me cold to most of their material, a sentiment that really shouldn’t be the case when considering my love for the groups excellent ‘Dimension:Dilemma’ album. And though new title track Pass the MIC initially mirrored those thoughts, time has been brought out the tracks many charms.
Mirroring much of what we’ve already heard in 2022’s slate of boy group releases, Pass the MIC is all bluster, bounding out of the gate with a filtered chant and aggressive drill inspired beat. It’s a statement of intent that though initially cringey, transforms into utter camp the more listens you put in. Tracks like this are so much better when not taken seriously and the moment you drop your critical lens, Pass the MIC transforms into quite a fun ride. Sure the vocals are hyper processed and the production follows the classic canned nature that the group have become infamous for but I think it kind of works here. It lends a unique, claustrophobic edge to an otherwise widescreen approach, giving the track an additional sense of personality that transcends the expected the shouty performance.
And though the tracks hip hop laced verses do much to bring the party, the track really comes into its own during its rambunctious, brass assisted hook. The pseudo melodic pre-chorus acts as a solid build before the track explodes into one of the years most catchy centrepieces. Sure, it’s just a number of disparate lines stitched together with the help of some exciting brass and percussion but sometimes that’s all you need to create a great hype track. Its energy is addictive, something that’s led Pass the MIC to probably be my favourite Enhypen title track yet.
Verses: 8
Chorus: 9
Production: 8
Performance: 9
Final Rating: 8.5 / 10
KBopped 
Personally me, I find this one to be the first Enhypen comeback I genuinely hate. I’m just done with this noise music, and the more I hear it, the more I feel disappointed with the k-pop releases today. Speaking of how I’d rate this song, 6.25 for me.
On the other hand, the b-side Shout Out is gorgeous and should’ve been the title track.
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I mean, this still isn’t for me. I get what it is trying to do, but it fails due to the overwhelming autotune. Hopefully next time Enhypen!
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I’ve been a very huge fan of Enhypen since their debut and I loved them a lot because of the meaningful lyrics in their songs, they weren’t just producing songs with great beats and depth but the lyrics as well had a way of dragging you in
But now all I hear is the stereotypical boy group song of too much auto tune where everyone either sounds the same or metallic and in this case its both, no meaningful lyrics just shouting random words together, and very awful beat changing.
This comeback was a total let down and a sign that HYBE’s management needs to be questioned thoroughly because this is the exact same thing they did with TXT’s latest comeback where I couldn’t make heads or tail of what was going on, the only thing that saved TXT’s comeback was Opening Sequence.
Enhypen is a group that has diverse vocals, no one sounds the same yet in this song it sounded like only Jay and NiKi were singing, Jungwon’s vocal that can never be mistaken for anyone else’s was nowhere to be found, there were no signs of Heesung’s and Jake’s vocals, Sunghoon and Sunoo were nowhere to be found as well.
I’ve watched the MV only once since it was released and I’ve never gone back again, I even scroll past their tiktoks that have the song in it because it was a total letdown.
The boys are not to be blamed for it because unlike BTS and Stray Kids they have no power over the production and lyricism.
Engenes should really sign a petition to HYBE and the other entertainment agency that co-owns Enhypen to not let that person produce a song for them and should instead ask the likes of Yoongi, Namjoon, J-hope, V, and 3RACHA to help or better still they should go back to the people that helped them compose from Given-Taken to Tamed-Dashed.
Engenes would not like to admit but we had a hard time convincing everyone of how great Blessed-Cursed was and we were hoping that their next comeback would prove to the public that Enhypen is not like all those mundane kpop groups but we’ve been let down pretty hard this time.
I dont want to stop being a fan of this group so I sincerely hope that their next comeback will remind fans of why we started stanning them
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