Not talking has come a long way since Charlie Puth…

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Ryo Miyauchi: A K-pop cynic might say once you heard a Heize song, you’ve heard them all. She has been sharply consistent in production style, vocal approach and theme, and “We Don’t Talk Together” follows that trend. BTS’s Suga hands her another gliding house-pop shaded in blues, more or less like Groovyroom’s contribution from 2017. You bet she operates more with resigned sighs than power vocals to sing about her heartbreak. Familiar as it seems, it’s just the right way to express in song the ambiguity of a relationship post-breakup. The production of “We Don’t Talk Together” is magnetic but standoffish, and Heize’s reluctance to approach it wholeheartedly gives off a slight riskiness in trying to fix what’s already far from saving.
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Nortey Dowuona: Warm, funky pop for Heize to place her delicate vocals inside. Giriboy throws in a fine, unspectacular verse, and Suga leaves us with a gentle acoustic piano rendition.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Suga’s production sounds like if you explained late-’90s crossover rap&B to someone who’s never heard it before, and Heize and Giriboy provide a solid approximation of an Ashanti/Ja duet. The ersatz vibe of “We Don’t Talk Together” works in its favor, though– the track is like a well-made recreation of some processed snack from your childhood, creating new sensations from half-memories.
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Katherine St Asaph: Aspires only to an Ariana Grande deep cut — which is not such a bad aspiration, actually.
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Kayla Beardslee: The verses show promise with their smooth throwback R&B sound (a la the excellent “New Love” by Victoria Monét), but the chorus is too limp and unremarkable to pack the punch the song needs. 
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Alfred Soto: The dullness of Giriboy’s part underscores the truth behind the title, making Heize twice as sympathetic.
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Joshua Minsoo Kim: Giriboy’s one of the more versatile producers in Korea right now, crafting songs for both K-pop groups and non-idols alike. As a rapper, he’s less exciting, and often just blends in with whatever song he’s on. That’s what he did on a recent posse cut, and it’s what he does here. Luckily, Heize’s songs are laid-back enough to make it feel appropriate. She’s pensive and distraught, he feigns a franticness–neither will talk about their feelings with each other, and this already-dead relationship will soon come to completion. A song for the summer, but one for those days where you spend entire afternoons lying on your couch.
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Iris Xie: One of my favorite aspects about this type of breezy K-pop is how it captures the freshness of even the confusing and haphazard moments in one’s life, so the silly, dumb misunderstandings sound charming amid the potential despair. “We Don’t Talk Together” expresses this attitude through how the synths sound like fizzy bubbles, where the snaps and snares sound like crinkly pieces of tinfoil sprinkled over cooing backing vocals. Their blankness, almost-adolescent cluelessness, and scared demeanors are made palpable through this backdrop of earnest sweetness, propelled forward by a stalwart beat. Heize’s singing is both flexible and deft, swiveling over hooks ranging from tightly coiled verses to much longer sighs, all of which convey both a wistful melancholy and youthful confusion over whether she is even making the right decisions. She pleads inside her head, “Why don’t you, I can’t let you go / Why don’t you, but I can’t hold onto you either,” and you hope that one of them will just blurt out what’s on their mind first, nervousness be damned. Giriboy’s cadence is easygoing here, playing the role of a boy who is conflicted but playing at stoicism: “Pain can be healed, I’ll let it go.” They both could solve this problem and avoid all of this heartache if they could just talk, but they aren’t talking because they simply don’t know how. It’s just so charming, and I’m rooting for them both.
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