Just over a week ago, VICTON made their comeback with their latest single, Chronograph. This new song is featured as the main track on their third single album, which also shares the same name. Chronograph is the group’s first official comeback since their full group 2021 release, What I Said. Later in the year, member Han Seung Woo enlisted into the military. Then, the group started promotions as a six member group by celebrating their fifth anniversary with Sweet Travel. The group continues with six members for the promotions and release of Chronograph.

It has been more than a week since the song was release, but Chronograph just hasn’t really caught on for me. The reasons to why I am think this way about Chronograph will become apparent. It is still a decent song, nonetheless. I just thought considering how the elements within Chronograph are essentially what I sought after in songs, I would have enjoyed it more. Anyhow, the instrumental was extremely funky with the rhythmic guitar and synth lines. It is on trend, quite dynamic and it is a mix that we have heard before. I could hear something along the lines of NCT 127’s Superhuman or something SHINee-esque in the background. While the instrumental does bring those memories back, the vocals and rapping are what sets the songs apart. In Chronograph, the vocals are bold and strong, making them standout over the vibrantly funky background. I quite like this, but I did think the melodies and delivery were a bit mainstream and not as exciting. As for the rapping, I do like how Hanse’s sequence adds a bit of edgy flair, different energy and fast pace to the song. But I do personally find his sequence sticks out too much in Chronograph and this disrupts the flow of the song to a degree. I kind of wished he tweaked his style to be a bit more fitting with the rest of Chronograph. Subin’s deep voice when he takes on some rap-speaking (but more on the spoken side), on the other hand, was extremely fitting for this song. Overall, a decent song with some good points. I just find the song held back a bit to really enjoy it to its full extent.

I found the music video to consist of some great visuals of the members. Sure, the video takes on that typical choreography and closeup formula that I bang on about being mainstream, but I feel that the closeups for this video do a lot. For the concept (and I am not entirely sure myself), but I see it as a ‘timeless’ concept. The song is about wanting to spend more time with their lover. A chronograph which the members sing a lot about is a device that can both act as a stopwatch and tell the time, which would aid with the keeping pace of the time and stopping time will allow it to be with their lover for longer. The chronograph itself is shown throughout the video. But in addition to this, I see the focus on some optical illusions (i.e. has no end) and art (i.e. timeless pieces), which all represents this idea of timeless in a more abstract manner. There is also video cameras recording the members (possibly representing that memories when recorded as there forever) and time paused just as a rock falls into a car. Again, I am not entirely sure if that timeless is the intended concept, but that is what I got out of this video.

I liked how they started off the performance. Not entirely sure what it was meant to be, but it was smooth and looks complicated. As for the rest of the performance, there was some clock hand references and some sharp moves, which helped make the performance looked cool and fast pace. But unfortunately, nothing memorable pinged me from the performance.

Song – 7/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 7.5/10
Overall Rating – 7.4/10