It still doesn’t feel real, but SHINee truly are back and taking the excitement up a notch by teasing their upcoming album Don’t Call Me. 

Okay, everybody, take a deep breath. Now, scream. Because SHINee’s back! Well, almost. 

The anticipation is running high around SHINee’s upcoming seventh album, Don’t Call Me, coming after almost two years. The group, however, is not making the wait easier by posting reality-bending teasers for the new release. The quartet also dropped a mood sampler for the album, titled ‘Fake Reality’. 

In true SHINee fashion, it does not make any sense, but we’ll dive in nonetheless. 

The mind-melding teaser comes seeped in vibrant colors (somewhat of a SHINee trademark) and kicks off with Taemin reading a newspaper on a park bench. Can’t say why Taemin is so calm, however, since the bench is literally on fire. A visual representation of ‘this is fine’, if we must say. 

Behind Taemin, on a billboard, are the words: ‘Any similarity to an actual person or event is unintentional.’ Variations of this phrase have peppered other teasers for the album. This, against the incessant ringing of a telephone and the mounting confusion of Minho, Key, and Onew. Also featuring: imagery of UFOs, aliens, and abductions. 

The clip ends with the members huddled over something as a disjointed voice says: “In this area, some of my beliefs become a fantasy. And some of my fantasies become a belief.”

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As you can tell, waiting is a hardship for everyone.

This will be SHINee’s seventh album as a group, coming almost after two years of hiatus during which most of the members carried out their mandatory military service.

Don’t Call Me comes out on Monday, February 22nd.

Check out the mood sampler for Don’t Call Me by SHINee:

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