( ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ).｡.:*♡

( tracklist )

this album released on a day i booked off for vacation, coinciding with the cottage weekend i had with my friends. that whole ordeal was a disaster but the silver-lining: i brought a bluetooth speaker and played this album while cooking longganisa on saturday morning. also slipped nct dream into the playlists during the two hour drives. candy (the song) made me feel happy and comforted when i was very stressed and mentally checked out. the magic of k-pop boys.

my personal song ranking is as follows:

1. walk with you
2. candy
3. moon
4. tangerine love
5. take my breath
6. graduation

which feels like an injustice because i like the first four equally! walk with you has the lyrics and moments that i adore. candy is very replayable and catchy. moon is a vocal flex (especially for mark) and tangerine love is lex-coded. it’s unfair to rank them against each other.

whoever chenle had to convince in order to get this album: i’m glad you listened ♡

unhinged thoughts incoming!! not many insights on individual members and their abilities because i am here for renjun.

first listen: based on my literal first run through of the album

( point-form incoherency )

track thoughts: formed after listening to the album at least 10 times throughout the day

( word vomit )
 
album thoughts

we love cohesion! however i'm worried that the distinct ~sound~ of each nct unit will slowly dissipate because this album (to me) sounded similar to universe. i question how much of a group's sound is attached to the members' voices themselves instead of the surrounding production. with nct this issue is amplified by the fact that mh are shared between 127 and dream, and then all the members participate in nct u projects so the intermingling of sounds gets complicated. dream's dream-ness comes from their line distribution which is definitely improving now. a noticeably fair line distribution across their projects is what separates dream from 127 and wayv.

i can see myself coming back to teddy bear, saturday drip, and never goodbye, but the rest of the songs will be album tracks in my mind and not exist outside of the top-to-bottom album-listening experience. overall i like the growth in this album and how sm seems to have a better idea of what they can do with dream. hot sauce may have more skips to me (that album tapers off and dies after countdown in my opinion) but the moments i love on hot sauce far outweigh the moderately enjoyable glitch mode project.