A week after their Young, Dumb, Stupid pre-release, NMIXX has officially returned with their latest single, Love Me Like This, and their 1st mini-album, Expérgo. Both the new single and first mini-album follows the releases of O.O, DICE and Funky Glitter Christmas. It is also the first major comeback to not feature former member Jinni, who left the group following the release of Funky Glitter Christmas at the end of last year. NMIXX has since reformed into a six-member group.

It appears that the producers behind NMIXX have learnt what stability is. During the entire first listen I gave to Love Me Like This, I was bracing for that wild and unexpecting change in the instrumentation and sound. But we never got that. Instead, Love Me Like This stayed relatively consistent and cohesive throughout, which I really appreciated. Love Me Like This is described as an upbeat R&B pop track, however I got more of a hip-hop impression initially through the bouncy beat and delivery that Love Me Like This adopts in its verses. The vocals and rapping in the verses do give the song character, however their delivery during the verses could have been strength somehow to give more of a wow factor. The pre-choruses was a definite highlight for me, with the melody and vocals here giving such a nice pop to the song. Lily’s delivery of the first pre-chorus, in particular, is my favourite part in this entire song. Then, the song slips into a chanty refrain for the chorus. Here, I can feel more of the R&B coming through. And although, “Love me like this, Love me like that” does come off as repetitive, I find this super effective. Give me by the end of the review and I will probably have the chorus keyed into my head. I did want more body to the instrumentation for the chorus, as it just doesn’t carry on the momentum that the pre-chorus was pushing the song towards. The touch of rock that we get in the second half of the chorus was ideal and it really helped strength Love Me Like This further. The weakest point of the song for me was the bridge. It was a very neutral part of the song that didn’t get a much of a reaction out of me. Overall, every release that NMIXX has made since their debut has shown improvement, with Love Me Like This their best effort yet. Compared to their debut, I am actually excited to see what their next release is like based on this trajectory.

Like the bridge of the song, the music video doesn’t get much out of me. I just didn’t find much of a connection to the sets used. I did like the brief Wizard of Oz type of set for the one-liner about a tin heart and I felt the white choreography set had impact. But the hallway and bedroom were a bit of a miss for me. Aside of that, I thought their stylists did an awesome job of showing off an edgy, hip-hop vibe with some of the outfits. But I also liked the pop of colour that some of the outfits had, which is fitting for the group and their youthful charms.

Choreography for this comeback looks awesome. I liked the entire chorus routine, as it makes such a strong impression and helps raise the impact level of the chorus. It also relieves some of that repetitiveness that the lyrics and beat brings, as each move was different and prevented the over-emphasis of repetition.

Song – 8/10
Music Video – 7/10
Performance – 8.5/10
Overall Rating – 7.8/10