Mnet’s band survival program "Great Seoul Invasion,” which premiered on July 20, raised bars for the participants, puzzling them with another difficult mini-mission.

The new ‘4 Bars Challenge’ mission required bands to perform an improvised 2-minute live using a guitar riff shared with them on the spot. Importantly, bands were given a mere 30 minutes to write a song using one guitar and add lyrics. After that, each of them had 5 minutes to practice it as a band set before putting on an actual performance in front of the team leaders.

A total of 6 teams, ONEWE, SURL, Lacuna, Band Nah, Hangronan, and OWALLOIL, who failed to proceed to the next round through the main mission and had to stay in co-called BAND POOL,’ competed in this mini-mission.

The MC Yoon Bak also announced that after this performance, the ‘BAND POOL’ will no longer exist, leaving contestants with no second chance starting from the next round.

This mission caught both participants and team leaders by surprise. Team leader Yoon Sung Hyun shared, “This mission sounds more like a penalty than a chance,” while Hangronan vocal Ku Ja Myung commented, “This is the kind of a mission that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.”

While this mission put a lot of pressure on the newly-formed teams like OWALLOIL and Hangronan, experienced teams such as Lacuna and Band Nah expressed confidence saying that they could use this mission as an advantage.

Nevertheless, the band that truly impressed everyone with their performance was SURL.

Recommended by such K-pop idols as BTS leader RM and singer IU, SURL is a 4-member indie band that creates genre-blended hits and tells relatable, true-to-life stories through their music. Being already widely recognized for such songs as ‘Dry Flower,’ ‘Snow,’ and ‘Don’t Say No (feat. Jay Park),’ as well as performing at music festivals in the US, Germany, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, etc., SURL continues rising their profile through participation in “Great Seoul Invasion.”

The ‘4 Bars Challenge’ once more proved the genius of SURL’s vocal Seol Ho Seung, who has shown a perfect improvised guitar play and emotional vocal delivery. During the last ten minutes of the preparation, he also came up with lyrics that expressed the participants’ frustration in regard to the mission rules, which made the song even more relatable and fun to listen to as Seol Ho Seung was screaming out the lyrics out of pure anger. Overall, the band members showed great teamwork on stage, making it hard to believe that they practiced the song only once.

SURL received a standing ovation from all team leaders and, eventually, joined the Yoon Sung Hyun & Kim Jae Hwan team, finally getting back on track to compete for the winner’s title. Band Nah and OWALLOIL had also successfully proceeded to the next round along with SURL.

Despite being called the prospective winner of the show during the first episodes, SURL were not able to secure a stable position throughout the show. Find out whether SURL will manage to maintain their great performance in the 4th Round during the next “Great Seoul Invasion” broadcast.

The show airs every Wednesday at 9:40 pm KST on Mnet.

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Mnet's band survival show “Great Seoul Invasion” aims to discover Korean Gen MZ bands with outstanding musical skills and bring them to the global spotlight. The competition's winner will receive a 1 million KRW (~$77,000) cash prize, albu

m release support, a private practice room and studio, opportunities to perform at festivals, tour gigs locally and abroad, and more.

Images provided by Mnet.