In punk subculture, calling someone a poser is an accusation – it means you're faking it, like carrying a skateboard without knowing how to ride. Korean four-piece POSER know exactly what the word means, but turned it inside out. "Our version of a 'Poser' is someone who keeps striving to be cool, even if they aren't perfect yet," the band tells us.

Formed around vocalist and guitarist Kim Jiho, with guitarist Choi Jingeon, drummer Jeong Seong Ju, and bassist Song Kwang – who joined the band as its manager before picking up the instrument entirely – POSER debuted in May 2024 with the scrappy, irreverent EP POSER! kick! punk!, planting their flag in the lineage of Korea's first-generation punk scene: Crying Nut, NOBRAIN, the Hongdae clubs of the late 90s and early 2000s, reprocessed through the ears of a generation who grew up hearing those records in their fathers' cars.

POSE, their first EP with a complete official lineup, is where the band stops carrying the skateboard and actually rides it. "I guess you could say this album is like a bunch of kids who can't even skateboard properly – the type who just carry it around to look cool – finally standing tall on the board and striking a real pose for the first time," says Jiho. He wrote the lyrics; Jingeon composed and mixed the entire record himself. The band are from Chungcheong and Gyeongnam – the provinces outside Seoul – and that non-capital identity runs through the music.

But stripping back the chaos doesn't mean abandoning what made them. When POSE's own digital liner notes say they stripped away their playfulness for this record, they're quick to clarify that the description itself was a joke. What they actually stripped back was the performance of mischief: the try-hard energy, the over-exaggeration, the urge to look cool rather than be it.