After a number of pre-release songs (to which I have not yet reviewed) and their official debut with Ponzona in March of this year, PURPLEKISS has made their first comeback today with Zombie. This new song is featured on the group’s second mini-album, Hide and Seek, which also dropped today.

Those pre-debut tracks and Ponzona were portrayed with dark concepts and mature sounds. So when I clicked on Zombie earlier today, I was completely taken surprised by the sound of Zombie (I don’t watch music video teasers nowadays, so I was going in without any knowledge of what the song could potentially have sounded like). It is a bit of a curveball in terms of sound, especially since I did not expect anything this funky and bright sounding from the group. But did this put me off Zombie? Of course not. In a matter of fact, I am digging Zombie completely, as I find the instrumentation and hooks to be quite infectious. The bass really uplifted the song and the funky guitars was just a fun element to the song. The rest of the synths really helped heightened the funkiness of the song and worked cohesively together to create a fun atmosphere with the guitars and bass. My favourite bit of the instrumentation has to be the launch into the final chorus. That was a great peak for me, fitting well into the funky and groovy direction of the song! The chorus was nicely done, with it adding a nice additional layer of perkiness to the song. The ‘Zombie, B, B, B‘ hook was a refreshing one and definitely quite addictive. It was also one that grew on me very fast I had to hold myself back from replaying the song for the umpteenth time, so that I could review the song (though I was tempted to just have it on a loop for the rest of the night and do nothing – lazy me strikes again). What also was quite impressive about Zombie was the vocals and rapping. All was superb throughout the song, with their strong vocals and powerful rapping on full display. Overall, an unexpected release but definitely a high calibre and quality track nonetheless.

I guess the other curve ball for this comeback was the colourfulness of the music video. Obviously fitting for the bright and upbeat side of the song. It is just odd, given the dark and mature image I had engrained into my mind thanks to their pre-debut/debut imagery/concepts. But like the song, this did not deter me from enjoying the music video. It was fun and creative (and at time humourous) take on zombies. Usually we see the members away from the zombies in other videos featuring an undead concept. But PURPLE KISS went to the next level by hanging out with the zombies. I suspect they are ones themselves, given how one of their eyes popped out and the other zombies didn’t eat them. But I guess they are not as affected, given that they could still function like humans. One little detail did distract me, however. In the lineup of ‘B’ words that was present on screen during the song’s hook, one of them was spelt wrong. Wonder if you can figure out which word?

Personally, I felt the choreography for this comeback to be the weakest aspect. I wished the moves were sharper, as this would have made the performance look even better. I also feel that the song’s main hook should have had a more defined and memorable dance move associated to it, just to give the choreography bit more of a wow factor to it.

Song – 9/10
Music Video – 9/10
Performance – 7/10
Overall Rating – 8.6/10