Song Review:: CNBLUE: Still, a Flower {Pre-Release}

• Release date: 2026 January 01

• Album tracklist: Still, a Flower

• Album runtime: 4 minutes

 I'm just going to get this out of the way, then, shall I? Welcome to the first review of 2026, and it's for a good one. Second gen band? Yes, please. Give me all of the bands. And I'm in love with the runtime, so we are starting the year off well!

There's a little bit of a gospel vibe to the instrumental that I really love. There's a lot of good energy to this, but because of that wonderful runtime, the song has the room to breathe and shift, go through both valleys and peaks rather than just be a fully consistent sound and energy level. Despite the relative intensity, the song reads as comforting, which is also a great way to start off the year. There's a spot shortly before the three minute mark, where the electric guitar sounds like it really gets to play. It steps out from the drums a little bit to play with the melody, but then it gently backs away for a small stretch of near a capella before the drums kick back in. I really like this.

So the thing I like about second gen groups, other than the fact that I don't have to worry a lick about ages (other than retrospectively because some of them have members that debuted worryingly young), is that we get such good vibrato out of them. In the case of bands, the odds go up even higher for that. We've got such a good range here for vocals, with one belt in there that I wish was a little bit extended further than what it already is. We do have some good lows and highs with regards to the pitch, and I appreciate that the median pitch is actually fairly low; it makes the blip up into falsetto that much more striking.

This is largely a lyric video with what looks like hand drawn animations. But it's beautiful.