EASY

“Do you think the world is going easy only on us?” the members of K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM ask in unison on “Good Bones,” the guitar-driven musical manifesto that introduces the five-track EP *EASY*. Mostly spoken—in Korean, English, and Japanese, covering the first languages of the group’s five members—and seemingly a reference to Maggie Smith’s 2016 viral poem of the same name, “Good Bones” reminds the listener that despite being idols and evoking angelic beings in their name, LE SSERAFIM lives on the same mortal plane as the rest of us: “We\'re all gonna die evеntually/And half of our life will be in pain/The othеr half depends on what we do.” What LE SSERAFIM does is *work*. As a mini album, *EASY* is presented as a laidback listening space to poetically allude to the sweat behind the group’s signature brand of fearlessness. The distinction between “easy” and “making it *look* easy” is central to the R&B title track “EASY,” which juxtaposes a smooth vocal delivery and rolling trap beat with the stuttering tension of its lyrics: “After the lights turn off, I wander in the night/Don’t know what is right, don’t know ’bout my rights/Envy, doubt, distrust, now friends of me, yuh/To the world, I\'m half seraphim, yuh.” The cyclical chorus of B-side “Swan Song” glides right by the phrase’s common definition to the perceived grace of the bird the members can most relate to: “Pretending to be elegant again/Dive like a swan/Although I\'m out of breath.” On the groovy, amapiano-inspired “Smart,” the members suggest it’s not just effort but also cleverness that informs their continued success (“I\'m a kid who will become a butterfly/I’m a smarter baby”), while the vocal flourishes of fan song “We got so much” defines with gratitude what all that hard work is for: “We got so much love/I won\'t take it for granted.”

LE SSERAFIM might be known for their bold, brave energy but on 'Easy', they reveal what it takes to make that image so convincing.