It has felt like it has been a while since we have heard new music from Sunmi, even though we have heard the odd single or two from her since her last official promotions of You Can’t Sit With Us from August of last year. Since then, she has released two special singles (Go or Stop? and Oh Sorry Ya). But as already mentioned, neither were promoted (and hence no review was written for them). Today, Sunmi returned with the new single Heart Burn.

Described as the day version of her pporappippam (a song that depicts a Summer night’s atmosphere), Sunmi describes Heart Burn as the heat of a Summer’s day. I quite enjoyed the likes of Heart Burn, simply for the pleasant nature of the song. Yes, it joins a string of pleasant songs that we have gotten thus far this year. But with a heavy presence of EDM still dominating the likes of the industry, pleasant songs like Heart Burn are much appreciated by yours truly. I quite like the easy going atmosphere that the song has, making it quite ‘easy on the ears’, as I always say. The melodies and instrumental were relatively simple, but they were still quite appealing and catchy nonetheless. The guitar and percussion creates a low-key pop instrumental, which came off as refreshing to me. I quite liked the sparing use and intriguing nature of the high pitch squeaky synth that fills up the non-vocal sections of the song. It was a simple use of the synth, but I thought it was clever to confine it to just those moments so avoid overuse, which in turn made it quite attractive. I also like Sunmi’s vocals throughout Heart Burn. They blended very nicely into the song, keeping true to the pleasant and easy going nature of the song. Her vocals were quite consistent throughout Heart Burn, never really breaking free from a standard motif. But somehow it works and makes Heart Burn more appealing. When compared to her other works, however, Heart Burn doesn’t really stick out for me. But it is still a really neat song.

The music video starts off quite innocent and almost cutesy in a way, with Sunmi playing about in the garden and playing with a dog. But it was soon revealed that Sunmi is an immortal femme fatale, who has caused the death of multiple men throughout history. She strikes in 1856, 1926, 1966, 1969 in the scenes, causing at least four deaths (that we know of). Sunmi’s portray is very fitting, given her sensual style we have seen in past music videos. I did wish the change of emotions of sorrow and guilt to happiness that we do see in the video was a bit more snappy and sudden, just to make the story a bit more apparent. And maybe a modern day shot of her going for her next victim would have been a nice closer to the video. But I guess that might lead into cheesy territory.

Usually, you see idols put a bit of energy into their performance to come off sensual. But what I saw in Sunmi’s performance was very little energy, but it somehow manages to come off as effortlessly sensual. I am amazed at her skills. I also liked the fans throughout the performance. They are aesthetic and artsy. They also added a fair bit of oomph to the stage.

Song – 8.5/10
Music Video – 9/10
Performance – 8.5/10
Overall Rating – 8.7/10