One of the comebacks that is starting this week of new releases is THE BOYZ’s WHISPER, their latest title track from their 7th mini-album BE AWARE. This is the group’s first Korean comeback since the release of SHE’S THE BOSS (yet to be reviewed) in Japan, the group’s first (and ongoing) world tour and their Korean MAVERICK comeback from November of last year. WHISPER does not feature member Eric, who has been on hiatus since March for health reasons. Hopefully he is on the road to recovery and will be back with the rest of the group for future promotions.

Without a doubt, WHISPER is designed to be a summer track. It has quite a colourful and equally upbeat instrumental, described as a retro 808 bass and futuristic synth sounds (taken from SOOMPI). You might think because WHISPER is a summer song, it follows up nicely from last year’s THRILL RIDE. However, I don’t think the two songs are on par with one another. For me, THRILL RIDE was exciting, vibrant and had great energy that made me not want to stop playing the song. The synths were robust and dynamic. However, when it comes to WHISPER, I find the newer song to be more generic and the instrumental doesn’t really bring that same level of excitement nor does it capture my attention. I do feel the vocals/rapping faired a bit better, even though it does sit on the subpar side of the spectrum. The word I have been using a lot in my review is ‘zing’ and WHISPER could have used a whole lot of this. The best aspect of WHISPER, in my point of view, are the hooks. While I am sure some people will definitely raise the hooks as elementary and generic as well, I kind of liked it. Particularly, the “Stay Stay, Play Play, Sway Sway“. But all the hooks in WHISPER did what hooks are meant to do, and it gave WHISPER a memorable factor. Whether the rest of the song catches on like the hooks, it might be too soon to speculate. My thoughts on the song could simply be due to the fact that I haven’t heard the song enough times for it to marinate in my mind or develop a connection. But as for now, WHISPER is pretty generic and standard for me.

I have no clue on what is happening in this video. And it is to the point where I can’t even join pieces of the video together to make it make sense. There seems to be a light and dark theme going on, with the dark side infiltrating the light side (see the section of the video that corresponds with the first pre-chorus). But then that theme is dropped, but reappears ever so slightly in the sections that correspond with the bridge. On the other hand, the video is bright, loaded with the colours blue and pink and super energetic looking (thanks to the presence of the members and the choreography shots). But to continue the confusion, there were guns and an alien abduction scene at one point in the second verse. And the ending was very cryptic yet mysterious. Yeah, I have no clue this time around and would greatly appreciate if anyone has any theories that might help me decipher the story or intent of this video.

The choreography for this comeback looks great. As already mentioned, it is quite energetic and suits THE BOYZ style very well. There is a bouncy aspect to it, which I quite liked. I also enjoyed the idea of the position of the backhand close to mouth to mimic a whispering action, which is simple and sensible as the performance’s main move.

Song – 7/10
Music Video – 6.5/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 7.1/10