‘Cerulean Verge’ Reviewed: WENDY’s Divine Inspiration

On her new EP, WENDY searches for a new way of seeing love — and herself.

In 2021, when WENDY released her debut EP Like Water, the mood was heavy. Like Water marked her return to the public after a year-and-a-half-long hiatus due to a serious stage accident in December 2019, resulting in several injuries, including a fractured pelvis and broken wrist. In very typical K-pop fashion, the music addressed this hiatus, but only vaguely. For those in the know, the EP opener “When This Rain Stops” was the most direct statement on her trauma: “When this rain stops,” she reassures listeners going through a tough time, “you will laugh again.” 

SM Entertainment, the home of WENDY’s group Red Velvet, gave her a lush production to belt on with the title track “Like Water”, where she builds up a mythical vision of herself: “My love is like water/ filling your sore spots.” However, for the majority of the record, the mood is somber and downcast. Even “Best Friend”, her collaboration with SEULGI of Red Velvet, is a slog to get through. The results were even muddier with her next project, Wish You Hell, an album that was such a sharp turn from the tenderness of Like Water that it felt too calculated. 

The problem with both EPs was that neither fully captured WENDY’s warmth or her sincerity, which is in ample supply in interviews. There is a candidness to her that is striking, rare even, in K-pop. Watch her guest appearance on the popular YouTube series “You Were A Kid Once”, where she bonds with a lonely fourteen-year-old girl to see this firsthand.  I never heard this WENDY on either EP. Instead, I felt like WENDY was being painted into polarities – a scorned lover or a weary woman – without lyrics that gave her stories nuance or the ability to hold multiple truths. 

So, in 2024, when WENDY and a cast of notable idols left SM, I was curious to hear how their music would develop away from the company that shaped them. I was most interested in the directions of WENDY and SHINee’s ONEW, another singer with such a big voice that SM never seemed to know how to produce him. Often, he recorded big ballads. When he did make pop music, it was largely forgettable and unimaginative. Yet, since leaving SM, ONEW has released three records in a year, each more adventurous than the last. 

I hear this appetite for experimentation and fun, too, on WENDY’s latest record, Cerulean Verge, a six-track EP released last Friday. While it is technically her third EP, I am inclined to call it her first because it is the first made away from the machinery of a K-pop titan. Notably, the music is brighter than any of the imagery or its mysterious title might suggest. If anything, I would have given the EP its lead single’s title, “Sunkiss”, because up until the very end, the music is loud and highly energetic. 

This is not, as I originally imagined, a dark, jazzy album. Instead, it’s infectiously vibrant, effervescent music. WENDY takes broad stroke inspiration from the music of 2000s pop-rock bangers, which you can hear on the title track “Fireproof”. Here, WENDY warns that nothing will tear her down. “So, fire away!” she sings in an opening line that is so powerful that it might just shake Rachel Platten’s confidence on “Fight Song”. On first listen, I found the song corny, but on repeated listens, I started to love the gusto and subtle rage WENDY builds within the song. 

But “Sunkiss” is the EP’s real left turn. Its musical references are wide: I hear pieces of Kelly Clarkson’s iconic Breakaway album and, perhaps, the discography of fromis_9, who are now labelmates with WENDY at her new home, ASND. But there are also hints of praise music, as if the focus of “Sunkiss” isn’t a partner but rather WENDY or her own faith: “Though it’s incredibly unfamiliar,” she sings in the chorus, “I’ve been waiting for you.” 

What’s most interesting about Cerulean Verge is the choices WENDY makes with her voice. On “Fireproof”, she flourishes negative space with delicious whistles and riffs; on “EXISTENTIAL CRISIS”, she sighs, “It’s not that deep!” But she pitches the last word with a playful lift in the octaves, leaning into the drama of it all because, yes, it is actually that deep. By the time she reaches the chorus, WENDY sounds simultaneously pissed off and weary: 

“My god, get wild! 

Shout your heart out and sing a song

I’m gonna collide with this world and have a fun night.” 

She’s rageful and tired again, when she resounds icily, “It’s a rat race, but I don’t like running.” The treat here is how emotive WENDY is. She isn’t afraid to sound ferocious and volatile. 

There are misfires, though. “Hate²” and “Chapter You” are bland fillers that make WENDY sound strangely anonymous on her own record. I’ve always joked to friends that WENDY’s charm is that she reminds me of a young Julie Andrews (she would kill it in a Rogers and Hammerstein musical), but that doesn’t mean I want to hear her sing something that sounds like a Princess Diaries soundtrack reject ( “Chapter You”, unfortunately). And while “Hate²” has a positive message of self-love (“I remind myself, yes, I am strong”), I found the production to be overly saccharine and cloying. The lyrics, too, never go above surface-level affirmations, which is a shame because WENDY has proven she has real depth as a musician.  

I’m most interested in where WENDY will go next, though, after listening to the final track “Believe”. Released as a pre-release single, “Believe” is reminiscent of the gigantic ballads SM gave WENDY with her first EP. But this one hits harder; it sounds more electric and immediate in its production. If “Sunkiss” has a praise team vibe to it, then “Believe” only doubles down on that feeling in explicit ways: “I believe in love/ I believe in hope/ I believe in sorrow.” As she reaches the end of the chorus, WENDY’s voice could shatter glass, dragging out the final syllable of “I believe in us” with one long, powerful breath. 

The overall message of “Believe” is that love will prevail for WENDY. This seemed to be what she was intoning on “Like Water” and “When This Rain Stops”, too. Throughout her hardest times, she relies on the love of those around her – and ultimately herself – to see her through the difficult times. When all else fails, she pulls on her faith. “Believe” is a love song, naturally, but it’s also about the supernatural effect of inner strength and spirituality. Maybe what WENDY intones is that love is more than just a verb; it is also, like the best art, divinely inspired.