Song Review:: Latency: It Was Love {Debut}

• Release date: 2026 January 08

• Album tracklist: It Was Love

• Album runtime: 3 minutes

 Is this the first debut of 2026? I can think of two others that I know about that are debuting, but they haven't happened yet. Of course, there's also yesweare, but they're a subunit of idntt, so I think this might actually be the first debut of 2026. But on the other hand, this is a band, so maybe not? Not that I have a problem with bands because, as we know, I tend to love them. As far as the members go, ages are fine. Maknae turns 24 this year. But! There are three former members of cignature: Semi, Haeun, and Jeewon (who recently debuted as a soloist with the song Devil's Jam, which is actually my jam and I loved it). There's also a member of LOONA and Loossemble in here: Hyunjin. The fifth and eldest member, Heeyeon, is a guitarist YouTuber, who seems to be quite famous. So that's the line-up. I'm excited. Fingers crossed.

Y'all, I am going to have half the beloved songs for the year for my playlist in January at this rate. And that is a sick guitar solo there at the two-thirds point. Most of the song is pretty consistent, which makes that guitar solo and the subsequent moment of quiet actually quite valuable for the song as it very specifically highlights our famous, non-idol guitarist quite well and then gives the vocals a chance to shine. That's actually very good writing for a song that has two separate draws, if you will. 

Vocally? I'm missing a big, bearing down of the vocals, which is a little bit of a disappointment. However, we do get a little bit of a slide up, and just generally, they're very strong and well-supported, with some vibrato. Plus, there is a lot layering in the last little bit of the song, and it's kind of the vocal equivalent of the guitar solo. Again, that's so good, and such a good choice for their debuting song. I'm really quite impressed. And there's a key change! Do you know how infrequent actual key changes are? Oh, I love this.

This is a live clip, but it's really cool. Costuming? Excellent. Attitude? Great. An explanation for an effect I didn't realize I had a question about? Yes. Let's go, ladies.

And, just because it popped up, they did a cover of You Were Beautiful by DAY6. So here you go.