Song Review:: NOWZ: Us

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  • Release date: 2026 May 13
  • Album tracklist: Us
  • Album runtime: 3 minutes

 Digital single, incoming! Odds are decent that this one will eventually be included with whatever their next mini album is (or maybe an upcoming full album? They're due for one) Since their rebrand from Nowadays, I've been enjoying their music a lot more. But this one, this one I'm going to like. I have a very strong feeling that I'm going to like it. One, it's member written with three of them being the sole lyricists and one of those three also working on the composition. Two, it's for the fans, and if there's anything I'm a huge sucker for, it's songs that sound like they could have come out of a musical based on a French book. But also, it's fan songs. I love fan songs so much. And this is a full three-and-a-half minutes. 

When this song softens, it really softens. The electric guitar gets a lot of time and attention to propel the song, which it needs to provide that strong contrast against the very soft settling moments and to keep the energy moving. It's not a high energy song, but it still needs something to keep it from collapsing into sorrow territory of emotion. Which it has. Thumbs up. Well done, Hyeonbin. 

As a side note, there's a full section that, in practice, is either going to going to go the route of Tonight (With Melody) by Minhyuk (the fan chant for that song was designed to let the fans sing a full seventy-five percent of the song with Minhyuk and they get the melody at the end while he harmonizes with them) or we're going to have a fanchant where the fans get to harmonize with the members, which isn't quite as cool, but it's the last twenty seconds of the song and that's going to make this the perfect song to do last during the encore at concerts, send the fans off gently and with love. I imagine there will be tears.

They're finally really proving the Cube lineage consistently. While the girl groups have a bit of attitude and bite, the boy groups are generally vocal central and those vocals are so strong. This is really what I've been waiting for with this group. They've now proven that the entire group can handle rap heavy and vocal heavy songs. I also love that the last word of the song is 시작, which means "beginning". That's precious.

Ah. The song title is "Our Beginning", which means that I'm also probably hearing the word "우리의" right before the last word. That's so soft.

Of course that's Yoon tearing up so hard he couldn't sing when they performed this at their fan con. Of course that was my sweet boy (it was between him and Hyeonbin for who was going to be my favorite member of the group, until Hyeonbin didn't even seem to consider cheating at a game they were playing at; of course Hyeonbin is also the leader, which I found out later, so he was inevitably going to be my favorite, but that doesn't change how much I adore Yoon). And the fondness of Jinhyuk as he watches Yoon struggle and the comforting? Oh, be still my soul. The frame narrative being animated gives this a distinctly fairytale feel. But my favorite part is that Hyeonbin (lyricist and composer) is the first one to find the book at the beginning, and then at the end, Hyeonbin (leader) is the one in front and looks behind him to make sure the others are following. It's so soft. I love it.

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