You know a K-pop trend has truly taken hold when it starts to morph the sound of an established artist’s discography. H1-KEY have experimented with genres before, but kept a melodic rock core to most of their work. And how awesome could that be if paired with the thumping dance beats that are currently in vogue? Sadly, rather than push this trend forward and bend it to their will, Unbelievable represents its worst, most generic instincts.

Yes, this is yet another instance of a cool dance beat being pulled down by talky, undeveloped hooks. If we somehow make it through this entire EDM trend without bringing melodic choruses back, I’m going to be very disappointed. There’s potential in Unbelievable‘s high-octane energy, but H1-KEY are forced to spend the entire song shouting and chanting and catchphrasing. I say “entire song” knowing that Unbelievable is only about two minutes long. It’s two minutes of nothing, though, so it actually feels longer because it goes nowhere.

To make matters worse, the music video’s flagrant use of AI heightens the artificiality and general sense of “we don’t really care, we just farted out this generic EDM track on the computer” as avatars of H1-KEY shoot their way through a random video game hellscape for no apparent reason. It’s a far cry from the meticulous work they made their name on and reeks of a quick cash grab rather than a piece of music built to last.

Grade: D-