[Review] FIESTAR - Mirror (Revisited)

Not gonna lie I get excited when working on a review revisit. That's because the suspense of using random.org to pick the song gets the adrenaline pumping through my husk of a body. Anyway FIESTAR won the sweepstakes for September's revisited with their track "Mirror," which was their second to last comeback before disbandment. Surprisingly, this was their second worst peak placing on the Gaon Digital Chart, while the album tied for their career best on the weekly album chart. Anyway let's see what kind of glasses we see through "Mirror" now that four years have passed.

• I'm not sure if this is just me, but the instrumental slaps you across the face with similar key notes to "You're Pitiful." While not as delicate, they are used more aggressively but eventually after enough listens I can't really hear the comparisons anymore. Anyway "Mirror" is very much the daughter of "You're Pitiful." From the sombre overtones, soft singing, and the visual styles of the MV, definitely pays homage to FIESTAR's best song to date.

Too true! While the tempo of the instrumental is much slower, no one can deny that "Mirror" is the clear successor of "You're Pitiful," and I think the distinction is important. A successor takes the motifs and expands on it, whereas a clone is just the same concepts with very minimal changes. Also I misspelled "somber" ha!

• Let's talk line distribution. Jei is the poster child of FIESTAR for sure, but the amount at which she overshadowed the other members was kind of ridiculous. Thankfully, "Mirror" is much kinder to everyone else given the rather inexcusable distributions of songs past. At least, more specifically, Cao Lu isn't left with nothing anymore, which is always a step in the right direction.

Man, I know it's only one song on the album, but imagine how much that hurts to realize you don't get any singing lines of your own. And in a group of five no less. But yeah they let Cao Lu sing something, which cannot be said for some other tracks.

• The bridge is nothing to write home about, but it's nice to see that the final chorus was split between everyone (except Yezi).

The impact of a shared chorus is more powerful when the whole roster can sing at a high level, but hey it still is nice to see no matter which group and which song.

• Speaking of, Yezi gets adequate (appropriate) time in the spotlight in this track. She has a lengthy rap in each verse, though she doesn't show up anywhere else. I really liked how she was used in the last chorus of "You're Pitiful," adding another layer to the singing with her rap and was hoping it'd make another appearance here, but oh well.

Beast rappers getting beast moments to shine. You love to see it. I actually disagree with that last statement because having Yezi appear in the finale would've made "Mirror" even more of a copycat to "You're Pitiful." Considering the masterpiece that the latter was, it'd have done no good for the former to try and jack their style like that. Keeping some familiarity was good enough.

• The MV gives me "Black Swan" vibes, which is to say, simple sets used to show off the girls being sad, while being coupled with choreography shots for eye candy. They're trapped in a house of mirrors, looking gorgeous the whole while. Not much else to say. The choreography is also subtle and seductive. Nothing too flashy, but not to the point where it's boring, either.

Not much else to say then, not much else to say now. Accurate through and through.

• "Mirror" is to "You're Pitiful" as EXID's "Ah Yeah" was to "Up & Down." The backbone was unchanged and both songs are clear winners. However, unlike "Ah Yeah," I'm not sold if "Mirror" is better than the predecessor. Visually speaking, it is, because Jei doesn't have 80% of the video content, and I like the more simple dance better.

Spoiler alert to 2016 me: "Mirror" is not better than "You're Pitiful." But then again looking back, I'm not sure saying that "Ah Yeah" was better than "Up & Down" was correct either. Think the jury may still be out on that take many years later.

• But vocally speaking, it's not as interesting (especially the bridge), and while Yezi's double rap is good, both combined don't measure up to the quality in "You're Pitiful." In the end though, it's a good song that feeds off what made "You're Pitiful" so great, and that's worth applauding any day.

And this is why. The vocal palette of "You're Pitiful" was leagues ahead of "Mirror," and Yezi's rapping was a step down from before. Given that FIESTAR were in limbo for most of their career, this two song sequence gave them a spark of life that unfortunately did not translate into any further momentum.