Song Review:: Cortis: GREENGREEN- REDRED {Pre-Release}

• Release date: 2026 April 20

• Album tracklist: REDRED

• Album runtime: 3 minutes

 It's not many groups that I can't listen to because they have too many minors. Usually it's the fifteen- and fourteen-year-old maknaes that land a group on Underage Protocol. Unfortunately, Cortis is on the list because they have the same issue as my beloved NU'EST at debut, who are the reason why I added that stipulation. Taemin and Max Changmin prompted the under sixteen issue. NU'EST resulted in the >50% rule. Good news is that we have less than a year before I lift that and can stop worrying about it. Cortis's music so far has been kind of hit and miss for me, at least as far as the promoted songs go that I've reviewed, so I'm not sure which side is going to get this song or the title track when the mini album is released. We are still plagued by the HYBE refusal to have songs over three minutes, which will be in sharp relief since almost all of their groups are releasing songs in the next couple of weeks.

Okay. I'm about to describe this instrumental in a very specific way, and I hope that you can follow me for it. This instrumental sounds like a level in a video game. More specifically, it sounds like a Space Invaders type video game. And what I'm actually reminded of is the ending credits of Nier Automata after you've gotten the E ending. It's almost a rhythm action game, but there's a definite vibe of a shooter element to the instrumental, something that you can just settle into and let flow over you while your brain is focusing on dodging and moving and shooting. But, crucially, it's not something that has a person character as the avatar you're controlling. Those don't have the same fluidity and ease of movement that this instrumental inspires. I'd almost argue that it would fit really well to one of the ship stages for Star Wars: Battlefront as well, but the ideal stage that this would soundtrack for would be something very similar the end of Nier Automata, if the end of that game wasn't so emotional. 

There's a vast majority of rapping in this song, so much so that I'm not sure that there's any singing, and the balance between vocals and instrumental feels off because the instrumental almost overwhelms the vocals, which has me raising an eyebrow at the producers because that should have been something they noticed and adjusted. Unless they didn't want us to hear their rapping clearly for some reason.  There's also a massive amount of repetition in this song. However, and this will be a rare time I say this, I don't mind it in this case because of the instrumental. It's very mentally lulling so that you stop paying attention to it, but you can just feel the rhythm and the beat instead. For this same reason, this would also make a great workout song.

This is a very weird music video. It kind of feels like they got a couple of cameras, and a couple of people to hold said cameras, and then just kind of filmed what they did on their "day off". It's a slice of life music video in the weirdest way possible, and I kind of dig it. This is one of those songs that I wish I could pop on repeat to see if it'll be one I actually like with prolonged exposure, or if it's one that drives me up the wall and out of the window if I listen to it more than five times in a row without a break. I don't know. But these are definitely goofy boys.