Song Review:: izna: n/a- IZNA{Debut}

- November 27, 2024

Release date: 2024 November 25
**Album tracklist: IZNA, TIMEBOMB, IWALY - izna Version, DRIP, FAKE IT
Album runtime: 13 minutes**

The project group from I-Land 2 is finally debuting. I say finally. It's a little weird seeing names I actually recognize in the debut list. Unlike ZEROBASEONE and Kep1er, their survival show siblings under WAKEONE, izna has a standard contract so, assuming something weird doesn't happen, they should be around for more than a few years. And, because they're a newly debuted group, I get to take a look at their ages in slight trepidation because while I remember that there were some fairly young contestants, I don't remember them making it to the end. But I'm happy to report that they barely squeak by with the majority of age and the maknae turning seventeen pretty soon. Her birthday is in January.

The runtime physically pains me though. The title track is barely over two and a half minutes, and only one of the songs is over three, and that's also barely.

The song has an absolutely fascinating rhythm in places. Much of the song is your standard affair and doesn't seem to reinvent the wheel, which is nice and gives the focus to the members' voices. That really should be the most important thing about a debuting group: highlighting the vocal talents in singing and rap. There is a lot of audience participation snapping scattered throughout the song and not relegated to a single short section, something I deeply appreciate as we may all know. The most interesting part of the instrumentals is that they follow the rhythm of the vocals during the chorus. Softer, dreamy notes cushion the vocals up above the snapping and the percussion. There is a good build through the climax, and the final chorus has an altered version of the normal chorus instrumentals. All in all, a very solid backing track for the vocals. It's just too short.

You can tell that they were chosen by YG affiliated people because they have voices that I wouldn't be surprised to hear from a YG group. The members seem very comfortable with lower pitches and in general, their timbres feel lower than I've been hearing from girl groups lately. As an alto, this excites me. I might get music in my range. There's a belt in TIMEBOMB that catches my ear because it sounds like a BLACKPINK belt. And that's ignoring the fact that IWALY fairly screams "YG group" (which makes sense given who wrote and produced it). The rapping feels low and powerful, a lot more akin to a boy group rap, and I couldn't be happier that they get to do that. I sort of watched the survival program, and it doesn't feel like debuting took their tastes and abilities and locked them up to better suit "the image". This group may be able to be cute with the popular styles, as I think we can hear it in b-side DRIP, but this debut song says their main sound won't be that.

Am I excited by a lot of the choreography we see? Yes. It actually feels like WAKEONE kept how the members performed through the survival show, though hopefully conditions are a lot better for them, instead of trying to force them into popular trends. There isn't a strong storyline going on with the song, but that's okay. This is an introduction and making things too complicated right off the bat will hurt that introduction for the general public, or at least the general K-Pop fan who didn't get to know them through the survival show. Also, Mai's hair is gorgeous. It's something I think should be pointed out.