IVE, ILLIT and RIIZE All Release New Music on October 26
Three of K-pop's biggest acts — IVE, ILLIT and RIIZE — converge on October 26 with new releases, capping an already packed month of comebacks from more than a dozen groups.
October 26 shapes up as the busiest single day in an already crowded K-pop calendar, with IVE, ILLIT and RIIZE all putting out new music at once.
HYBE's ILLIT drops its fifth mini album, "BREAK EVEN," at 6 p.m. KST. Belift Lab says the title borrows the economic concept of a state of neither loss nor gain, with the album built around a refusal to keep pouring effort into a relationship that gives nothing back. The release follows "It's Me," which peaked at No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Starship Entertainment's IVE releases its mini album "Looks Can Kill" the same day — the group's first album in roughly eight months, since "REVIVE+" in February. Starship has constructed the launch around a cinema concept, using projection mapping on Seoul high-rises and film-style posters across the Seongsu neighborhood to build pre-release buzz.
Rounding out the day, SM Entertainment's six-member boy band RIIZE releases a prologue single ahead of its second full-length album, due next spring. The group revealed those plans at its third-anniversary fan meeting at Inspire Arena in September, which drew around 23,000 fans across two days.
The three-way convergence comes after a month that already saw returns from NCT WISH, PLAVE, NMIXX and a solo EP from BLACKPINK's Lisa, among others. PLAVE itself had just kicked off its first world tour, "KEEP IT MANIC," at Incheon Munhak Stadium last month, underlining how fiercely competitive October has become for K-pop releases.
