I’m going to be a little bit on a bias side here. I know, I know, it’s probably not good for reviews to go with your bias groups/artistes but this album by NCT Dream shows such an immense growth from the group that debuted with Chewing Gum when they were tiny tots (okay, not tiny tiny but you know, younger-er).

DREAM()SCAPE is NCT Dream’s 5^th mini album, which they are deeply involved in, whether it’s song-writing or production. Even the teasers and trailers were borne out of their ideas, notably Renjun.

Click down below for my first impression on their songs in the album. Yes, yes, I just managed to listen to them (being a fan who is also a working adult is tough, y’all).

icantfeelanything: This song has a K-drama intro vibe. I can totally see it as a song in a drama. It’s a great idea to put such song as the starter to the whole album. It sets the right tone, in my opinion. Personally, this is one of my favourites even from the teasers. There’s such a heartbreaking tone or vibe to it. The title is also very “youthful”. We’ve all been there where we just feel like we want to lock ourselves up in a room and stare out the window and cry a tear or two or a whole bucket. This song feels like it.

Smoothie: This is the title song and from the YouTube contents that these guys put out before the release of this album, it seems to be the song chosen by the leader, Mark, because it steers away from their usual NCT Dream sound (see: Hello Future, Beatbox, We Go Up, etc.). This song actually reminds me of something that NCT (yes, they are part of a larger group called NCT) would do, particularly NCT 127 or NCT U. But it still works for NCT Dream. It does not steer so far off that it is a turn-off for fans. Previous song title release was ISTJ and it is quite close to that kind of vibe. Maybe it’s something that I can see NCT Dream does because they have members like Mark, Jeno, Jaemin and Jisung (the rapper line, basically) who has good deep vocal tone. When the chorus hits with repeated “smoothie, smoothie”, these guys came in one after the other to sing it and it sounded really good. The MV shows the choreo for this song and man, it fits the song – it’s really smoooooottthhhh(ie).

BOX: This has such a Tiktok-video-edit-bgm vibe to it. The lyrics that I can catch was “don’t put me in a box, I’m banging on the roof” and “keep running”. It fits NCT Dream and their target audience – the youth (not me though I can relate). The song is produced and written by Mark, which actually fits with my idea of what he would actually write. That’s just so… NCT Dream of him to write such songs that the youths can particularly relate. I’m not going to project and say he’s feeling that way but he’s at the age group where youths his age might feel that way and maybe he could relate to that.

Carat Cake: I’m not an expert in music. But as a listener, I don’t know how to put this into words but the song somehow gives me that bright feeling like diamonds shining. It could be from the twinkling sounds at some parts of the song. It’s quite clever, I must say.

UNKNOWN: THIS song is NCT Dream sound. This feels like another part of their Life Is Still Going On song that the youths played a lot especially during exam period to give them the motivation that everything will be okay. This song is it. “Don’t change, lеt go, Be brave, be strong, But take it easy, no rush, I know you got it. Go, fail forward, Go get your voice heard, don’t fold.” I’m a working adult and THIS is my favourite song. This song is going to be my go-to motivational song for me to wake up everyday to go to work. And it’s written and produced by Mark and Jeno. While Mark is the leader of the group, a lot of the fans have called Jeno as the captain, the one holding the team together when Mark is not around. So, the song being written and produced by the two of them seems a little fitting.

Breathing: Ending off as usual with the slower song for this group, which gives off a story about their friendship, which is one of the reasons why they attract a lot of fans – their story. This song is written by the rap line, Mark, Jeno, Jaemin and Jisung and it’s almost always these four members who will write such songs for the group (see: Dear Dream, Never Goodbye, Rainbow). To have this song towards the end is actually really nice and soothing.

I wish this album has more songs but these 6 songs are really good. I’ve always felt that NCT Dream releases no-skip albums. I might say that as a fan but when I do talk to some people, they do prefer NCT Dream because of the songs and the albums that they put out generally have more relatable songs that are easy to listen to whether you are young or old.

Listen to the whole album here: