Release Date: January 31, 2023
Track Listing
- PULL UP
- Blue Clue
- Love or Die
- Vanilla Sugar Killer
- Overdrive
- So Special
Review
VIVIZ started 2023 early with the release of their third mini-album titled VarioUS.
The title track Pull Up indicates that VIVIZ is moving away from their happy-go-lucky pop style, favouring a bit more flavour and groove for their musical output this time.
Pull Up sets the tone with its funky early to mid-2000s Urban Pop feel. The song sounds designed to have you turn the volume up to eleven and test your speakers as much as possible.
Lyrically, it has the sass of female-fronted songs of that era, with SinB and Umji spitting a few bars emphasizing that you are not hearing a typical VIVIZ track.
This feeling continues through the remainder of the album in one way or another. There isn’t an abundance of the sugary sweetness from their previous albums to be heard anywhere. Instead, you get little sprinkles of it.
The other tracks that stand out are the ones that closely follow the R&B formula, such as Love or Die, Vanilla Sugar Killer, and So Special. This type of sound feels like it fits VIVIZ like a glove, and if they explored this genre further in the future, I wouldn’t mind.
City Pop also seems to be a good fit for VIVIZ, as heard in Overdrive. However, that depends more on how the composers faithfully replicate that period of music than anything else, in my opinion. Regardless, VIVIZ doing City Pop is still pretty cool.
Compared to their previous two albums, VarioUS is a more immediate change in direction for the members of VIVIZ. Given how their identities are still tied to their past as members of GFRIEND, shaking things up to establish themselves more as the unit of VIVIZ was not unexpected.
With that said, VarioUS will continue to help separate VIVIZ from its past. Based on what is on this album, it sounds like their future could be full of more surprises too.
