InterviewLE SSERAFIM has grown stronger in dealing with fear

From left are Huh Yun-jin, Kazuha, Sakura and Hong Eun-chae, members of K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM. The group's leader, Kim Chae-won, announced Tuesday that she would sit out promotional activities due to a neck injury. Courtesy of Source Music

Three years after its first full-length record, K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM is ready to tell a different story about fear.

The five-member group is set to drop "PUREFLOW pt.1," its second studio album on Friday, built around a premise that inverts the group's debut message. While the group's first record declared strength through fearlessness, this one argues the opposite — that fear, faced directly, is what makes you stronger.

"When we first debuted, the message was that we were strong because we had no fear," said Huh Yun-jin, the group's primary songwriter, said during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Monday. "Now it's that we're strong because we faced our fears."

The group's leader Kim Chae-won was not able to join the interview due to a neck injury.

Eleven new songs in the "PUREFLOW" album follow that premise, across genres ranging from Latin house to punk to funk.

Formed by Source Music, a HYBE subsidiary, LE SSERAFIM debuted in May 2022 with its EP "Fearless." The group's name is an anagram of "I'm Fearless," and from the start built its identity around a unique kind of self-possession — confident and unbothered by convention.

That stance, paired with a sound that pulls from pop, Latin rhythm, rock and EDM, made them one of K-pop's fastest rising acts. "Antifragile," the group's second EP, reached No.14 on the Billboard 200 and turned them into million-sellers within months of debuting, and its first studio album, "Unforgiven," peaked at No.6 on the same chart in 2023.

K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM poses during an interview with The Korea Times at a cafe in Seongdong District, Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of Source Music

The question of why the album took three years produced answers that were more considered.

"A full album carries a certain weight," Huh said. "You can only put one out when you have enough accumulated experience and something real to say."

What that time contained was a catalogue of specific fears the members had accumulated and learned to live with. Kazuha located her fear in the uncertainty that comes before creation.

"When we start preparing new music, there are moments when I doubt myself, when my own certainty wavers," she said. "That's when I feel fear. But I try not to run away from it. I think of it as part of the growth process and try to channel it into possibility."

Hong, meanwhile, spoke of a fear that arrived with, not despite, the group's success.

"We received so much love, and that love brought with it a whole range of emotions, including fear," she said. "I got to know myself better through all of it. I became more honest with myself."

K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM / Courtesy of Source Music

The most searching answer came from Huh, on the subject of what it costs to let people in.

"Compared to when we debuted, I'd say we're closer to sisters now," she said. "But with that closeness came its own kind of fear — the fear that comes from truly letting someone in. What I learned is that being open, being transparent, saying the things that hurt, doesn't push people away. It actually brings you closer."

"Talking about our wounds can feel vulnerable. But when vulnerability meets vulnerability, it becomes solidarity," she added.

Not every fear the group named feels weighty. Asked what frightened her most right now, Sakura said, "Summer mosquitoes. We were talking on the 23rd floor of our building and someone spotted one on my neck. I get bitten so easily. I was horrified."

The room laughed. It was a reminder that LE SSERAFIM, for all the seriousness of what they are trying to say, has not lost its sense of balance.

That balance, between sincerity and self-awareness, runs through the album's title track. "BOOMPALA" samples the globally familiar "Macarena" and wraps its message of confronting fear inside a song that is difficult not to groove with.

Huh was clear that the contrast was intentional.

"The message is that when you have nothing holding you back, fear disappears," she said. "Change the way you look at fear and it might just turn out to be an illusion. We wanted to put something that could feel dark on the surface inside a song that makes you want to dance."

K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM / Courtesy of Source Music

In the recording booth, the group was directed to chant rather than sing. Sakura re-recorded five times before the producers were satisfied, while Huh was told to imagine meditating in a forest. The music video, it turned out, was shot in one.

Kazuha said she found "BOOMPALA" comforting for a specific reason.

"When I'm going through something hard, I remind myself that it won't last forever," she said. "The song says, zoom out, look at the bigger picture, and it's just a part of the journey. Accepting your emotions and still moving forward — that's what's admirable."

Near the end of the interview, Hong was asked what she most wanted to hear once the album was out. She answered without hesitation.

"I want people to go 'this is so LE SSERAFIM,'" she said. "When we debuted, we were still finding our color. Now I feel like our identity, our sound, our way of doing things, is coming into focus. This is the album where I hope people really see that."

Members of K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM pose during an interview with The Korea Times at a cafe in Seongdong District, Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of Source Music