Seven months after ROCK THE NATION introduced WHIB as a group chasing ambition with clenched fists, CHERRY PIE arrived on 5 August loosening the grip. The second mini album trades the debut's determined edge for something brighter and more contradictory: five tracks moving between youthful ease and quiet ache, a group testing how many different colours can sit inside one name.

WHIB's name splits the difference deliberately, drawn from WHITE and BLACK, a nod to a spectrum rather than a single identity. ROCK THE NATION leaned into the darker half of that spectrum and sold over 100,000 physical copies doing it. CHERRY PIE swings toward the light, and for a seven-member group only eighteen months removed from their November 2023 debut, still building international visibility through Boys Planet 2 appearances and a Japanese single, that kind of tonal reversal is a risk as much as a relief.

It's a risk the members seem to have only half-trusted going in. KIM JUNMIN didn't clock how well a moment in the B-side "Blueprint" had landed until after the album was finished: "I didn't really realize it during the recording process, but after hearing the finished version, I thought it sounded really good." UGEON admits the brighter concept felt uncertain at first too, until the reaction outpaced the doubt: "so many AnDs told us that the concept suited us really well, and that made me realize that we can pull off this kind of refreshing style too."

Vocally, the album pushed people into unfamiliar registers. WONJUN needed ten takes to land the title track's range, sitting higher than his usual comfort zone. HASEUNG, the group's oldest member and main vocalist, found himself surprised by his own range expanding mid-process: "I was surprised that I was able to use an even wider variety of vocal tones than before." UGEON went further, deliberately disguising his voice on "Blueprint" until, in his words, "even our fans couldn't immediately tell that it was me."