My favourite girl group (and pretty much the group that got me hooked on k-pop) are back with a new single and a new look!

Written by Yoo Young-jin, the man behind “Genie (Tell Me Your Wish)” and (still) my favourite song of 2010 – “Lucifer,” the new single “Hoot” sounds a lot more grown up compared to their earlier releases. It’s still fun! Take a listen:

EDIT (28/10/2010): Embedding the recently released music video…

On first listen I went: “Hmmm, different.” Then I played it again. And then again. And again.

This went on for nearly 2 hours straight in office, I’m not kidding. It didn’t really take me long before I realized I really like this song!

The girls sound great and my only grudge against the track is the constant laughter of the girls that appears after the choruses. Quite annoying — and distracting. Maybe it has a part in the video but I do feel it couldn’t have been done away with in the audio release.

The music video is out on October 27th and I will update the post with my opinion on the same then! EDIT (28/10/2010): After watching the video (which guest stars Choi Siwon of Super Junior as a Bond-like agent), I don’t feel any indifferent about “Hoot”. The music video compliments the song very well. Particularly liked the idea of 3 rooms with 3 girls in different colour palettes. Dance choreography is okay, the “shooting arrow” move is very well done but I did notice that Jessica got more screen time in the front. I love her and all but I hardly saw Yuri & Hyoyeon get some good screen presence. I also feel the bits of the video where all 9 girls dance in black looked futuristic, which made for a disconnect with the rest of the video’ s retro vibe.

EDIT (27/10/2010): Just finished listening to the whole album.

I know it’s just a mini-album, so I’m not going to write in great detail to critique it! Here’s my track-by-track review:

01. “Hoot” – It took me a few listens, but I really like this track. I honestly didn’t want another “Gee”. They’ve grown past that. This really is a different sound from them so I had high expectations that the whole album would be, well, “different” – 4 out of 5.

02. “내 잘못이죠 (Mistake)” – Supposedly written by Yuri, it’s a good R&B ballad. Not great, but good – 3 out of 5.

03. “단짝 (My Best Friend)” – Sounds like a mish-mash of 3-4 k-pop songs – 2.5 out of 5.

04. “Wake Up” – Essentially “Run Devil Run” 2.5. Heard it once, don’t think I’ll be clicking on it again – 1 out of 5.

05. “첫눈에…(Snowy Wish)” – Early X’mas track, catchy & sweet. Probably my second favourite after “Hoot” – 3.5 out 5.

Though I was expecting a “different” sound throughout, the new mini-album from SNSD is not that good in my opinion. With the whole retro-vibe concept, I was expecting more funky sounds.

I had it on pre-order on yesasia.com but having listened to it in full, I think I’m going to cancel it and wait for a full album release or an album re-package in a few months time.

‘Hoot‘ mini-album final rating: 3 out of 5