Comeback Signs Continue As Dreamcatcher’s Preparations Move Into Late March
K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall
K-Pop’s resident rock/pop girl group lets more hints drop about their upcoming release as comeback predictions abound.
When Dreamcatcher typically works towards a comeback, and we get closer to the target window for which they’ll be bringing fans new music, it’s usual that the hints and tiny ideas that point towards what that comeback will entail will naturally increase. And with a longer-than-usual gap between comebacks, the desire for those little hints gets goes up even more.
The group has been notoriously tight-lipped on anything and everything regarding their early April estimated second full album release, but that hasn’t stopped them from leaving the crumbs and signs that point to when, where, and what that release might entail — all sprinkled here and there with their usual social media posts. Let’s take a look and see what the group has been up to this week, and what tidbits we found out about their new music!
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As usual, fans got their weekly dose of SuA as she made her regular appearance on SBS Wendy’s Young Street. This week’s topic was about small acts of kindness that are nice, with the choices being getting an umbrella lent to you on a rainy day, holding the door open or holding an elevator for someone. Aside from this, Wendy complimented SuA on the fact that Dreamcatcher was, for the United Kingdom, the most searched artist on K-Pop vendor site Ktown4u for January and February. While these are somewhat small accolades in the grand scheme of the industry, knowing that there is high interest in the group, especially internationally, validates the company’s strategy of being more of a globally-appealing group and, of course, their sustained success. No comeback crumbs from SuA this time around — but as she’s normally pretty good at keeping those under wraps I wasn’t expecting terribly much.
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But SuA wasn’t the only one making an appearance on a radio show this week. Handong also was able to drop in on a Chinese-language radio show on TBS eFM hosted by Nature’s Aurora, where they discussed their friendship, the way they’ve kept in touch and talked to each other about work, and about Handong’s favorite Dreamcatcher B-side (it’s “Raid of Dream” ballad “Polaris”, by the way). As far as comeback hints go, Handong was definitely careful. Even though she’s certainly blatantly said things that are coming up that are spoilers for activities, album details are another beast entirely, and Handong joked that she would be “kicked out of Dreamcatcher” if she spoiled anything significant. She did, however, say that the choreography is certainly exhausting, something that fell in line with SuA and Yoohyeon’s vLive in which they said they had parts that were pretty intense. Dreamcatcher has never been a group to shy away from difficult or physically demanding choreography, so this was certainly nice to hear.
Interestingly enough, this appearance continued confirmation that Handong is among one of the most socially active members of Dreamcatcher as far as idol networking and friendships are concerned, especially as it relates to her fellow Chinese idols. Aurora and Handong’s casual conversation and closeness seemed to add to a string of friends in the industry Handong knows, from ex-CLC member Elkie and TWICE member Tzuyu, to ex-gugudan member Sally, to the recent revelation, through a TikTok challenge, that Handong knows (G)I-DLE’s members Yuqi and Shuhua. It’s really nice to see that not only does Handong keep up a lot of these friendships, but that they’re willing to share in each other’s content. This is doubly better for (G)I-DLE, as their recent release, punk-pop title track “Tomboy” from their first full album “I NEVER DIE”, is A)doing very well on the digital charts and B)is a rock-type song that can only help elevate Dreamcatcher’s profile by association due to their rock/pop core. Either way, the important thing is that Handong’s got a healthy network of friends, and that they’ve led to or potentially will lead to nice collaborations for Dreamcatcher.
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In other social media and comeback crumb news, atriple helping of vLives were dropped in this week by the group, with each having plenty of the usual fun personal interactions and details from the members but also having just a little bit more detail revealed from behind the comeback or future plans curtains.
Yoohyeon sat down for a brief video vLive where she talked about her mom encouraging her to get something different done with her hair, which led to the current two-tone that she has, wants to do another cover collaboration with leader JiU, and even had Dami poke her head in for the briefest of appearances. She also idly discussed some nail work she had done, which had to be later addressed in one of the other vLives this week, and talked about non-work topics such as coffee preferences and what games she’s playing.
Gahyeon’s voice-only vLive was a short session of questions and answers (something she’d also do on her personal Instagram) talking about the fact that some subtle spoilers might have been dropped by Dreamcatcher members already, managed to ensure she wouldn’t reveal how many tracks the new full album release would have, and answered queries about what various activities she likes doing these days. She also was looking forward to unboxing videos for the new album, and the reactions that would come from doing so. Gahyeon by far had some of the best social media updates of the week on Instagram, with a variety of both posed shots as well as casual pictures, the best of which was a bar outing with Siyeon and JiU. Out-and-about photos are for me some of the better updates from the members, as they are slightly less set up and more along the lines of idols being normal humans like the rest of us, and Gahyeon didn’t disappoint on that front this past week.
The highlight of livestreams this week was the Yoohyeon, Gahyeon, Handong (and later JiU) live, though. We got a few dismissals of spoiler thoughts (people thinking that the use of smiley faces and four-leaf clovers being comeback spoilers were quickly disappointed to see that Yoohyeon’s smiley-face nail work was just something she felt like doing) as well as a few little comeback bits, such as that Gahyeon had already done a subtle spoiler that day before, that Yoohyeon heard a “hah!” sound in the title track that catches her ears, and that Jiu’s first impression of the title track was that it got her racing. There were also a few funny stories from them (such as Handong’s growing Photoshop skills), Handong teaching Yoohyeon and Gahyeon a new word in Chinese (“wig”) so she could comedically call out how her and Yoohyeon are using hair extensions, and a discussion about how you might be more inclined to be more emotional/cry as you get older, which turned into a humorous recollection of Gahyeon’s slightly drunk shouting of JiU’s name that’s been talked about before. Speaking of JiU, her late arrival to the vLive brought with it some news that she would upload a video soon, which ended up being an impromptu self fashion show on the group’s official TikTok. Group vLives are always fun with Dreamcatcher, and this was no exception.
Left to mostly their own devices to figure out what Dreamcatcher has in store, the two pieces of news that fans discovered this past week about the group’s potential future activities were indirect in their presentation. The first was an Instagram update from SuA, containing some pretty standard-sized photographs. Speculation abounded about what they were for, and Gahyeon confirmed some fans’ thoughts that they were for new passport photos, something which explained in part her journey to the Gangnam regional office this past week. New passports are needed if the group is planning to travel, and their confirmed dates in Germany (for KPopFlex) and Spain (for Primavera Sound) play to this update. Does Dreamcatcher have more travel planned than just those two places? Nobody knows as of yet, but new passports certainly prepare them for more destinations if they want them.
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The other, more comeback-relevant update was seen in the form of Weekly Idol asking for fan note submissions for Dreamcatcher. As Dreamcatcher has appeared on Weekly Idol before (twice in the last year), this signals a potential upcoming appearance, and one that would not happen without them being on a comeback promotions schedule. Working with the calendar and upcoming confirmed appearances on Weekly Idol, it appears that Stray Kids will be next (next episode preview), followed by Oh My Girl (preview live broadcast), and then IVE (same call for fan letters as Dreamcatcher). All three groups will have theoretically released their new albums by then, making a subsequent Dreamcatcher appearance anywhere from the 13th of April onward. This potentially puts their album release window on the 12th of April (for a comeback stage on Thursday the 14th) or anywhere earlier or slightly later. We don’t have complete confirmation just yet, but the signs point to a comeback very soon, which means the group’s trademark mystery code posts might make an appearance within the next week or so.
It’s certainly difficult for some fans to continue to be patient, but all of the secrecy and waiting will, in my opinion, be worth it, as Dreamcatcher will be revealing a new story, new concept, and most importantly, new music with the space of a full album to explore both genres within their wheelhouse as well as newer tracks. I’m excited for what those are, and hopefully you all are as well, and I’ll be here to report on the details as always. Be sure to clap, subscribe, and signal boost my content if you like what you’re reading, and I’ll be here next week with what will no doubt be more Dreamcatcher comeback details!
