VERIVERY's 'Don't Panic!' panics just once, at 2:31

When you step into an elevator and the lights flicker once just before the doors close, your heart drops for less than a second, and when the lights come back you laugh as if nothing happened. VERIVERY's 'Don't Panic!' has exactly one moment like that.

Five members, nine months later

VERIVERY released their 8th mini album 'CONFETTI' at 6 p.m. on September 7. It's their first in nine months, since 'Lost and Found' last December, with five members: Dongheon, Gyehyeon, Yeonho, Yongseung and Kangmin. Of the five songs, 'Touch (Y2K Unit)' and 'Nun Majuchyeotji (눈 마주쳤지) (DYG Unit)' are the first unit songs they've released since debut.

According to the album introduction, the title track 'Don't Panic!' is a bright funk pop song built on a groovy bass and synths, a song about not panicking and finding small joys in the repeating days. In the music video, familiar places, a construction site, a sauna, a van and a feast, turn into playgrounds.

When a song that never rests stops just once

For most of its running time, this song runs evenly and brightly. The flattest 10 seconds start at 58 seconds, and within them the loudness moves only 1.6 dB. dB (decibels) is the unit of loudness, and a 1 dB difference is barely noticeable, so the sound runs almost in a single line. There's plenty of sparkling high end, cymbal hiss and breath, too, so it sounds light from start to finish.

But at 2:31, the sound that had been running like that disappears almost entirely in a little over two seconds. Then from 2:34, for two seconds, four short thuds sound half a second apart, like a heartbeat, and at 2:36 there's half a second of no sound at all. Then at 2:36.75 the final chorus comes back all at once at full size, and from here the low end hits harder on every beat: the rumble below 150 Hz, the bass and kick drum you feel in your body, rises past 40% of the whole on each beat. Hz (hertz) is how many times the air vibrates per second.

When the lights come back on

The title tells you not to panic, but the song shows one moment of panic, and then laughs even harder. So tomorrow morning in the elevator, start it from 2:28. Waiting a few seconds after the lights flicker and come back on is 'Don't Panic!'.