[MV & Album Review] fromis_9 � 'To. Heart'

AKP STAFF

FROMIS_9 � TO. HEART

Track List:

1. The Way To Me (Intro.)
2. To Heart *Title
3. Miracle
4. Pinocchio
5. Be With You
6. Glass Shoes (MAMA Ver.)

The girl band fromis_9 has now officially debuted with their first mini-album "To. Heart.' They were formed from Mnet's reality TV show "Idol School" and were the graduates. It's pronounced "Promise" in Korean�and symbolizes their promise to be the best. The group is made up of nine members: Roh Ji Sun, Song Ha Young, Lee Sae Rom, Lee Chae Young, Lee Na Gyung, Park Ji Won, Lee Seo Yeon, Baek Ji Heon and Jang Gyu Ri.

"The Way To Me" contains different messages from the girls to their fans. It is pretty optimistic overall. "To Heart" is a cute, playful tune. It's very girl-group-y, with the adorable asides and the upbeat tune. It's the title track but I think the third track may have deserved it instead. "Miracle" is far and away the best song on here. I liked it a lot when I watched the video of this from "Idol School," and it's nice to hear a solid studio version here. It sounds even better this way, with an epic breakdown. It retains the clear, bold vocals of the original.�

"Pinocchio" has that staccato style that I've been missing while waiting for an f(x) comeback. It's also hella catchy. "Be With You" is a prettily-sung ballad. You can tell on this one who is a singer and who is not, as some verses are handled more deftly than others. The MAMA version of "Glass Shoes" seems to have more energy and heart to it than the original version. While I'm not a fan of remakes, this one seems better overall.

Some of these are pre-release singles, and that's fine. Fromis_9 sounds pretty good to my ears. They need to play to their strengths, though, and maybe split off into three or six members with the strongest vocals if they want to sing ballads. We can be thankful there were fewer awkward moments. It's a pretty good album, with enough verve to impress me. Now that many second-generation bands are disbanding, we need some new blood. From their mouths to my heart. �

MV REVIEW

The girls are in school, cleaning up, going to gym class and dance class, and they clutch their love letters to their chest, intending to give it to a special guy. It's cute and endearing, with several little fun parts that you can't help but smile at -- at least a little.

First off, I like the framing device here, that it's simply them playing around and having fun, even with a home video cam. They play that up quite well, and it lends an air of authenticity to the whole thing. Obviously, this was all storyboarded out, but it was still fun to watch them put it together.

The dancing was pretty well done overall, though the focus wasn't really on the girls dancing. It was animated enough, but a little hard to judge since we don't see that much of it. I do like how free they look as they flail their arms out along with some nice footwork.

So while it's hardly the most original video (it reminded me a little of "Candy Jelly Love") it was still fun to watch, particularly some of the strangeness like struggling to write with an over-sized pencil. Not bad. Not bad at all.