By Pyo Kyung-min

Three years after their first full-length record, K-pop girl group Le Sserafim are ready to tell a different story about fear.

The five-member group dropped Pureflow Pt.1, their second studio album, on May 22, 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,” says Huh Yun-jin, the group’s primary songwriter. “Now it’s that we’re strong because we faced our fears.”

The new album’s 11 songs 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 their EP Fearless. The group’s name is an anagram of “I’m Fearless”, and from the start, they built their identity around a unique kind of self-possession – confident and unbothered by convention.