Written by Elijah P.

Cornerstone Entertainment Inc. – a talent agency that’s known to house all upcoming ‘artistas’ and established personalities such as Catriona Grey, Empoy Marquez, and just to name a few – has gambled on producing an all-male idol group called VXON (pronounced as ‘vi-sion’) and their latest debut that launched not too long ago titled “The Beast”.

The up-and-coming five-member group aim to become showstoppers in the industry, putting a more rap-oriented track in the forefront of their debut. But in spite of the ambitious direction, VXON doesn’t live up to the hype of their promotion weeks prior to the release of “The Beast”; It takes a lot of courage to title your debut as ferocious as ever, let alone debut under the wing of a talent company that has produced a lot of known names along the way. However, “The Beast” doesn’t seem to live up to its title. In fact, it seems to cater more to ‘dude bros’ who hang out at bars in the middle of a Happy Thursday and book a cross-country trip to the nearest shoreline EDM festival.

VXON can carry themselves choreo-wise, but lyrically, it seems like the laughable edits in the lyrics are crossing between delusional and outright ridiculous: “You can watch me, as I walk/ You can say my name” and “Gotta read back pages those changes/ We oversee in faces, realest faces/ Get you places, let erases beat disgraces”. There are sections here in “The Beast” where it feels out of place and oddly outdated by today’s production standards: brostep wobbles that channel 2014 Project-X parties, and growling vocal stylings similar to SB19’s Mapa. To think that this is a debut is a sign of a much needed training and development for the idol group. There is little to no hints of being a ‘beast’, especially if the presentation shown isn’t up to par in the idol group competition.

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