Dreamcatcher's Final Lead-Up To 10th Mini Album Filled With Anticipation, Outpouring Of Support

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NOTE: Potential audio spoilers for Dreamcatcher's latest music. Proceed at own risk if you are working spoiler-free.

'm always personally excited about last lead-ups to new music. While some fans of Dreamcatcher like to walk into the new release of music with no preconceptions or spoilers, I relish in the idea of consuming the little teases and bits of content the company drip-markets to fans ahead of a new album. The discussions and ideas that result are always fun for me to participate, and there's this collective build that is more of a good experience when others are there to react to it. Over on the Dreamcatcher Discord server I help moderate, the wave of real-time chat reactions is part of that communal excitement, and I hope those of you reading have found your own ways to experience the same.

This time around, the hype was no less apparent in Dreamcatcher fan circles, but some unexpected news ramped up the support for this comeback even more. Here's what you might have missed in the last full week before new Dreamcatcher music.

The small side promotion of the album's storyline via the ghost_story_catcher YouTube channel continued, this time with an interview with someone who talked about how her friend group had become obsessed with crowns after getting a letter mentioning them. With so little time left until release, I'm not sure if we'll get conclusions to this set of urban myth-style videos, but I've enjoyed watching them.

The Track List dropped at the beginning of the week, signaling another five tracks and confirming the title track name at last as "JUSTICE". Of note, besides the fact that the crown and comic motif continued, was a new and prominent name in the production credits, that of Tankzzo. According to his personal Instagram, Tankzzo's prior work with Dreamcatcher includes working with Drums on last album's B-side "Rising" and doing arrangement work with recent 2024 concert rock remixes of both "The curse of the Spider" and "Lullaby". Along with his other body of rearrangement and remix work, which you can find in this Reddit post I made, there's quite the variance that had a definite rock influence.

That influence would be apparently partially confirmed when first listen at audio from Dreamcatcher's 10th mini album was finally dropped this week in the form of, as usual, the Lyrics spoiler. Siyeon described this track on chat app Fromm as opposite to "OOTD", and it certainly sounded like that on my first listen. Heavy guitar and drums, followed by an airy solo with an ethereal vocal on top gave many fans good first impressions that this would be a bit of hard-charging track for the album.

But of course the most anticipated audio, besides the Lyrics Spoiler, was the album's Highlight Medley. While we'd subsequently get a few more audio spoilers for "JUSTICE" from music show previews, such as from M Countdown and Music Bank, as well as from YouTube/Tiktok shorts previewing the Jacket pictures, the Highlight Medley gave us the longest preview of "JUSTICE" yet, which sounded like the pre-chorus buildup to a rock chorus. With the B-sides also seeming to have heavy presence of guitar and drums in their snippets, and a rather haunting, though relaxing chorus in last track "Fireflies", this seemed to harken back to earlier Dreamcatcher music which leaned a bit more heavily on the rock rather than pop aspects. We have yet to hear the music in full, but buzz was up in Dreamcatcher fan communities that this would be a return to form after the sometimes-experimental work of 9th Mini Album "VillainS".

Yet for all the build to July 10th, Dreamcatcher and Dreamcatcher Company looked to future plans, dropping the news that the group would return to the US in November for a multi-city tour across the country. Despite news that traveling artists would pay increased visa fees as a part of a update by the US, Dreamcatcher is slated to return close to the end of the year, though costs may likely pass to us on some level because of it. Still, Dreamcatcher returning after what will be over a year since their last foray into the US ensures they will continue to be busy after "VirtouS" promotions, and hopefully take advantage of the tour revenue sure to come to the group and company when ticket sales go up on July 10th. Should I secure a ticket/decide to go, you can look forward to yet another concert-day report from me on what will no doubt be another great Dreamcatcher live performance!

Despite all this exciting news about comebacks and concerts, however, fans received more sobering notice about Dreamcatcher's upcoming "VirtuouS" promotions late in the week. Dreamcatcher Company reported that Main Vocal Siyeon visited the hospital to be evaluated after symptoms of "poor health and anxiety", and it was recommended that she take a step back to rest. Prioritizing her health and well-being, the decision was made after discussion with her that she would not participate in "VirtuouS" promotions to focus on recovery, and that further updates on a return to Dreamcatcher activities would be provided in the future. The remaining members of Dreamcatcher will promote the album as per normal.

From our limited perception as fans, K-Pop seems to be an intense and sometimes frenetic industry from a work perspective, so this news about Siyeon may not come as a surprise. I've always gotten the impression that Siyeon is one of those musical artists who feels performance and music keenly in her blood, which lends itself to some passionate live work but also to what looks, at least to me, to be a deeply emotional connection to them. That can cut both ways, and Siyeon, who's been racking up not only memorable vocal performances with Dreamcatcher but also in her own right (the latest being another apparent OST gig for Disney+ series "Red Swan"sometimes frenetic) may have finally felt like she might need a bit of a break. As such, I do applaud the decision for Siyeon to take a step back and for the company to agree with that assessment, and more importantly, the respect to allow her as much time as possible to return when she feels comfortable doing so - even if that's beyond "VirtuouS" promotions.

Beyond this, I'm not choosing to speculate any further, and I'd advise fans to do the same. For all that K-Pop artists show us, we only see what is present when the cameras are on, and only the group, company, and members themselves know what's happens after that. As someone who has done professional work with artists in the past and has seen that public facade fall away after a busy day of work, any guesses we make about an artist's condition are just that, and we are better suited to throwing our energy towards support efforts and well-wishes. One of these is being led by fan courtneykillx on X/Twitter, who has been putting together a support site filled with fan-submitted messages to be translated and hopefully read by Siyeon and Dreamcatcher. The form is linked above, so be sure to participate if you want!

As we move into album release and promotions without a Dreamcatcher member (the first since 2020, when Handong was not present due to work on Chinese survival show "Youth With You" and the COVID-19 pandemic), I hope everyone can do what they can to support the group, signal boost their content, and of course, keep Siyeon in mind and wish her a good rest and full return when she feels comfortable doing so. For me, the best way I can contribute to that effort is through these content articles about Dreamcatcher, and continuing to keep fans updated as I have these last four years. Next week will see a full report on the first week's worth of comeback promotions, along with a separate article reviewing the entirety of "VirtuouS", so I hope you look forward to all that, and more!

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