On April 27, QWER finally returned with their fourth mini album, “CEREMONY.” Following their third mini album, “In a million noises, I’ll be your harmony,” released last June, and the October special single “Blue Whale,” this marks their first proper release in roughly six months. (As “Blue Whale” is a special single, the group focuses on the 10-month gap between their third and fourth mini albums when calculating the time between comebacks.) “CEREMONY” sold 117,303 copies in its first week, beating out the roughly 80,000 copies the group’s third mini album sold to set a personal record. The music video for the title track reached No. 5 on YouTube Korea’s trending videos. Then, on May 2, the group performed on “Music Core,” their first-ever appearance on a televised music show. It’s all exactly what you’d expect from a group a previous “Weverse Magazine” article called a “growth-driven band.”

But with “CEREMONY,” it’s clear QWER has no intention of settling for that label. Having carved out a path entirely different from other bands, they’ve doubled down on what makes them distinct while also beginning a journey to find out what’s really at the core of QWER. While preparing for the comeback, producer Kim Egg presented the idea of a “quest for self” on season three of the YouTube series “OSHI NO GIRLS,” meant to ask what they really want and pose questions like, “What is my essence?” The concept of a “self-search” tied into the end of the season and their production partnership with PRISMFILTER, culminating in a graduation “CEREMONY.”

This “CEREMONY” is for us
Already in their third year since debuting, the band closed out one chapter of their story with a graduation concept woven throughout “CEREMONY.” The album’s full of small details—they included a photobook with pictures staged like a proper graduation ceremony, the QWER members wearing mortarboards for their photocards, and the album itself was designed so it can be displayed like a framed picture. But as they put it, “We have to look back on our days of growth and show people the completed version of us.” The quest to find themselves at the heart of the album doesn’t stop at the graduation “CEREMONY,” which is why the album’s both a graduation and an entrance ceremony—a process of closing one chapter and moving onto whatever comes next. Fittingly, QWER makes their case with a more mature sound on their fourth mini album. Behind that sound is an even greater talent for their instruments that they sharpened over the course of countless live shows.

https://youtu.be/a-bOkhZw1rQ?si=a38TpbeS3io9-TwH&t=360https://youtu.be/a-bOkhZw1rQ?si=a38TpbeS3io9-TwH&t=360https://youtu.be/a-bOkhZw1rQ?si=a38TpbeS3io9-TwH&t=360When the group debuted, Hina and Magenta were still beginners, scrambling to keep up with leader Chodan’s professional drumming. Siyeon, too, felt the pressure when “Algorithm’s Blossom” required her to sing and play guitar at the same time, leading to a teary-eyed performance at the band’s showcase. Now when they play, they’re layering a dense, rich blanket of sound over Chodan’s drums, something immediately evident on the lead single “CEREMONY” as well as the track “BAD HABIT.”

Interestingly, this fourth mini album feels like a natural evolution of everything QWER has always done so well. On first listen, “CEREMONY” seems to channel the same bright, bubbly energy people have come to expect from them, but the music builds on their third mini album, which saw the group taking a more active role in the songwriting process and was noted by critics for its harder sound. And that’s where the distance between “T.B.H” and “My Name is Malguem” lies. The new single “CEREMONY” in particular sounds in many ways like a more mature version of “T.B.H,” not only musically but also in the world fleshed out by the lyrics. Where “T.B.H” only extends as far as the love interest with the “simple greeting” and the singer who’s unable to “hold back my heart from pouring out,” “CEREMONY” introduces a whole audience (“Look, I’m about to fly / The best song, sung just for me / Ceremony for me”). It’s a much wider world that includes both the singer and everything surrounding them. Perhaps that’s why Siyeon mentioned on Weverse LIVE on April 19 that the song “feels a bit different from what we’ve done so far, and a little different in nuance,” adding that there came to be “a barrier that we felt we had to break through somehow, and it was hard to bring out the nuance of the song.” That same thread of wanting to “be myself” continues to stand out in the next track, “BAD HABIT,” as well. Right from the opening, a bold, blistering guitar leaps over hard-hitting drums, and immediately, you have to admit, this upgraded version of the band is headed in the right direction.

But the track that demands the most attention is the album closer, “PIONEER.” You can feel an overarching theme running its way naturally through “CEREMONY,” starting with the title track and “BAD HABIT,” moving through “BANI BANI,” and ending with the quintessentially QWER-ly “Our Voyage.” But they’re not done yet. By wrapping up with “PIONEER,” a track that reads like they’re declaring themselves trailblazers, QWER signals that a new version of the band is on the way.

Cause we’re a pioneer
So why, of all the tracks off the new album, does “PIONEER” deserve particular attention? The reason is that it picks up where “OVERDRIVE” left off, the most adventurous track on the band’s third album. The new song’s tough, raw, and fast. The vocal range is also huge, and Siyeon’s more than up to the task with her amazing technique. Worth noting too is how much Chodan, on drums and supporting vocals, gets to do here. “PIONEER” is, in short, a window into what QWER means when they talk about expanding their sound. Lines like “If I do fall again / I never hide again / I’ll face the unknown call / I’ll write the ending myself / Cause I’m a Pioneer / Into your cold heart / I’ll breathe life again” make it clear that QWER knows exactly what they’ve built up and just what it means. “I think our band started out pretty rough around the edges, and we didn’t feel very professional,” Chodan said in an interview this past March marking the third anniversary of their debut. “I feel grateful for everything, and I feel a certain sense of responsibility, like, to keep showing people exactly who we are.” And that’s exactly what QWER does on “PIONEER.”

As long as we’re together, the story goes on
Following the release of their special single in October, QWER headed straight into their first world tour, “ROCKATION.” They tore through eight cities across the US, then Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore, before returning to Seoul in March just in time for the comeback. It was a demanding schedule, but they came back tougher from it. Along the way, the group seems to have developed a much clearer sense of where they’re headed. “We felt that trying out different genres and vibes was necessary for growth” on the latest album, Siyeon said, “so we pushed past our own limits in our own particular way and now we’re back with something we’re really proud of.” Hina echoed the sentiment. “Going forward,” she said, “I want to show people not that we’re growing but that we’re fully formed.” QWER’s definitely getting there—slowly, you might say, but steadily. What lies ahead is the road not taken by anyone before, and that might be a little frightening, but I’d like to send these “reckless” pioneers “a kiss in the air.” There are no wrong answers where trailblazers are going.