Beam Of Prism (2022.02)

VIVIZ arrived with this debut mini album carrying the full weight of GFriend's dissolved legacy, and the title track and accompanying pieces make a deliberate, almost defiant case for reinvention. The production throughout sits in a glossy, maximalist early-2020s girl group register — synthesizers layered into shimmering walls, percussion that hits with confident precision, arrangements that move with cinematic sweep. "Beam Of Prism" as a concept threads light imagery through the whole project: the idea of white potential splitting into spectrum, of one identity fracturing into plural possibility. The trio of SinB, Eunha, and Umji bring vocal chemistry honed across years of GFriend performances, but there is an audible loosening here, a playfulness that the more earnest GFriend aesthetic rarely permitted. Eunha's voice in particular seems to relish the higher-register acrobatics, while SinB anchors the lower harmonies with practiced control. The emotional register is euphoric and slightly dizzy — the rush of starting over, of choosing yourself, of stepping into something new with eyes open. It belongs to the specific wave of idol group reinventions that followed the 2021-2022 label exodus period, carrying both the confidence of experienced performers and the energy of something being built fresh. You play this on a good morning when something feels possible, when the light is hitting right and you want music that meets that feeling.