Dreamcatcher Teases Potential Concept As They Pack Their Bags For A Late July “Summer Holiday”

K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall

The lead-up to K-Pop’s rock/pop girl group returning at the end of the month is underway with photo teasers to spare.

Dreamcatcher and their fans hit the ground running this past week with a bevy of photo teasers for the upcoming new album “Summer Holiday”, set to drop at the end of July. Comebacks in K-Pop are always fun to me because of the fact that we get this slow build and lead-up to the eventual release. But we also get a huge increase in activity that shows the artist or artists are gearing up for a promotion period filled with memorable performances and variety appearances. Even though Dreamcatcher does quite a bit different in the K-Pop world, they are in step with other K-Pop groups in this regard, and InSomnia, of course, couldn’t be happier — at least til the new songs drop.

Let’s take a look at what we heard from Dreamcatcher on the road to “Summer Holiday” this week, as well as all the other things they did!

More than half the week was dedicated to Individual Teasers, and over that time we got Dreamcatcher in what I would say were three different looks that got progressively more darker as the days passed. Monday saw a seemingly normal “summertime” style, with beach photos from the group, Tuesday took them into what appeared to be an enchanted forest to snap pictures that gave off a fairy vibe (think Titania or Mab), and Wednesday ended up with something closer to what fans are used to from Dreamcatcher, with a dark mood that seemed almost vampiric or gothic witch-like in nature.

A lot of speculation has come out about these teasers and what it means for the songs, which I think is part of the fun. It’s worth reminding people that things like the BOCA era picnic photos rarely led to what you eventually see in the music video, and are kind of just meant to give you a sense of what they want to inspire in you when you listen to the music as far as concept.

The group teasers that showed up on Thursday just accentuated this even more. Honestly, the contrast between all three is what has me intrigued. We’ve seen before how Dreamcatcher can take contrasting images to create a combined concept and what I am seeing is something like “normal on the surface, disturbing underneath”, something we haven’t quite seen since Prequel, which would be the album carrying title track “Fly High”. It’s been quite a while since we saw something with that kind of creepy, horror-like vibe, but thankfully, by this time next week we’ll know for sure.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39yeTdIuKJU[/embed]

Speaking of the track list, that was the last thing that dropped from the latest comeback. Unfortunately, vendor ktown4u leaked this track list on accident when pre-orders for the album opened, so the surprise was somewhat foiled, but that still didn’t stop some of the hype from happening as we went into the weekend.

What we did get to see that we didn’t before were credits, which showed Siyeon, Yoohyeon, and JiU pick up time on the album besides mainstays LEEZ and Ollounder, along with a few new names on last track “A Heart of Sunflower”. We also got confirmation of the title track — “BEcause”, which has a curious capitalization that we may see explained after the album releases. The names certainly have a summer “feeling”, but names, of course, could be as deceiving as the group’s differing teaser images could be. We’ll see a ton more as we march towards release this week, I’m sure.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExAc5Lvy1xw[/embed]

Along with what we saw on the formal comeback schedule, we saw the ramp-up begin with everything else that comes with it, including variety appearances. We were already teased with the fact that Dreamcatcher would appear on Weekly Idol, as they did last time, but channel ALL THE K-POP is going all out, with a Weekly Idol episode preview and a Weekly Idol dance compilation. I’m sure we’ll get plenty more good times on the show, and it’ll serve as a good way to kick-off upcoming promotions.

[embed]https://twitter.com/SpotifyKR/status/1416004992515805185[/embed][embed]https://twitter.com/hf_dreamcatcher/status/1418497386809237505[/embed]

This comeback is also bringing in some new partners to the mix to work with Dreamcatcher and Dreamcatcher Company. Both Sony Music Korea and Spotify Korea teamed up to help build hype for the comeback, the former likely serving as the album’s distributor while the latter is doing a mini-Q&A and taking questions from the fans for a video on release day. It’s really neat to see some new opportunities open up for the group, and I’m excited to see where this takes them.

[embed]https://www.vlive.tv/video/256924[/embed]

And of course, we got an announcement of a comeback showcase to kick off the album release, scheduled for 6:00pm KST on Friday. We’re sure to see everything from the title track choreography, to explanation of the album concept and more, so I hope to see everyone there!

[embed]https://www.vlive.tv/video/256924[/embed][embed]https://www.vlive.tv/video/256924[/embed]

Two vLives this past week accompanied all this comeback news, with Gahyeon dropping in just before bed to give a couple more half-trolling comeback teasers (“I told you it was cute concept” being one of the most notable) as well as chatting about who she does and doesn’t argue with (read: never mess with Handong, mostly because she’s nice, but also because she’s pretty strong).

SuA and Siyeon also sat to chat with fans for a bit, talking about the upcoming comeback, where they shot photos (Yangyang beach), and how SuA is taking JiU and Siyeon with her to get to meet Red Velvet’s Wendy on Wendy’s Youngstreet, something that Siyeon worried was a spoiler until SuA reminded her the schedule was officially released. SuAyeon is my favorite friendship in Dreamcatcher, and this vLive was a nice reminder as to why.

Of course, vLive wasn’t the only place that SuA got to hype up the upcoming album — she also has her now-regular gig on the newly re-branded Wendy’s Youngstreet, where she confirmed that her and Wendy exchanged info and have been sending messages to one another (in true SuA fashion she even called Wendy “my baby” and “my honey” when joking around with her) and along with Dickpunks’ Taehyun, talked about food preferences as well as which friend is the most hated — a very stingy one, a friend that only calls when they need something, and friends that get easily upset when joking with them. Unlike their first episode together, this was on video, so everyone got to see SuA and Wendy enjoy the fact that they appeared to match clothes as well as watch the energy go up as the show progressed. So far, it seems like things are going well, and with a double appearance next week (SuA on her own on Wednesday and JiU, SuA , and Siyeon on Saturday) we’re sure to see even more fun interactions.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO0aJ02iJDk[/embed]

Lastly this week, amongst all the comeback craziness, came the second-to-last episode of reality show Dreamcatcher Mind. This time around, the group filmed as characters starting their first day of work, giving fans a peek into a potential alternate reality where they never became K-Pop idols and ended up in the same office together. Here’s the TL;DR of what went down:

• Interesting workplace characters that were played included “ex-rebel Siyeon”, “overseas worker Handong”, “motorcylist JiU” and “Yoohyeon stan Yoohyeon”.
• Dreamcatcher completed a work assignment to find and create a report of images in unique ways, with SuA needing to literally cut some corners to fit them and JiU eschewing the technology to draw the report out.
• For the afternoon work, Dreamcatcher paired off and did “blind marketing”, where they didn’t know what they were selling to the other members. Siyeon and SuA successfully sold an enema product while Yoohyeon and Handong had to sell a chamber pot, with Yoohyeon’s past episode mishaps coming back to haunt her after debating pooping in public for money.

At first, I wasn’t quite sure about Dreamcatcher doing some mild acting — after all, could they really play off of parodies of work stereotypes? But I think as the episode proceeded, the roles grew on me. This was especially true of Yoohyeon, who clearly has been reading and watching a bunch of Dreamcatcher fan content and mannerisms to play her Yoohyeon stan character.

Others were charming just for playing characters that you wouldn’t expect to. I’d never expect someone as polite and kind as JiU to be a rip-roaring motorcyclist eager to invite her co-workers for a ride. And yet others of the group were content playing versions of themselves as presented to the camera turned up to 11, with practical Dami working hard quietly to get things done while “foreigner” Handong had so much trouble with Korean that she had to use two fingers to type on the Korean keyboard. All in all, this was an interesting look at a Dreamcatcher that never made it as idols, and while it’s hard to imagine them in a “standard” work environment due to how talented they are, it was still nice to have them show us what it might be like. We have only one episode left, and one hopes they’ll end it on a bang, especially as they are heading into a comeback right after.

Dreamcatcher’s “Summer Holiday” is almost upon us, and by the time we roll around to next week, I’ll have a full album breakdown as well as the usual summary and recap waiting for you right here. Hope you’re as excited as I am for some new summer music, Dreamcatcher style — be sure to clap, follow, and signal boost this article if you like what you’ve read!