By Source, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link, Wikimedia

 Album Review: Dreamcatcher - Road to Utopia

Dreamcatcher has come back with a new Edenary produced mini-album. Instead of reviewing simply the title track, I am going to review the whole album. Despite being a fan of the group, I get the feeling that after the first part of the Dystopia series, they lost the steam they built in 2019. It will be interesting if this reignites interest in the group for me.

Intro

Since this is an intro, I can't count it for the overall score, but it is electrifying. Like, the best moment ever written by Edenary. I hope that just like Stray Kids' Stop, this gets a full version, then we will have a true song of the year nominee.

Odd Eye

While it has grown on me, Odd Eye is perhaps the weakest Dreamcatcher title track since What in 2018. Lyrically talking about imperfection and falling, something I am not sure I want to correlate with in the pandemic. Thankfully, the straightforward rock chorus is great. While good, it lacks any stand-out hook or moment, something rare for Dreamcatcher. A slow grower, I still doubt it will go further. The chorus misses a golden opportunity, playing it way too safe with the chord progression.

On another note, compared to the great story from the first two MVs from this trilogy, the outfit and MV quality has dropped, and that too pretty drastically.

Rating: 7.75/10

Wind Blows

The strings and piano stand-out in this much more diverse rock production. The verses scream song of the year, driven by perfect ambition. The chorus, on the other hand, plays it safe, sounding like 2017 Dreamcatcher. Thankfully, the instrumental breakdown near the end of the song is really strong. Wind Blows is a hard song to review, for it is great, but could have been better. I wonder how often I will come back to it, and I am doubtful.

Rating: 8.5/10

Poison Love

Dreamcatcher has a long history of strong electronic b-sides, peaking with legendary songs such as Silent Night and Sleep-Walking. Unlike many others, I was much less impressed by the jarring drop of In the Frozen. Poison Love is pretty much Dreamcatcher by the numbers, until the golden chorus. The instrumental here is perfect, and Dami (I think, perhaps SuA or Yoohyeon at points) has a voice that works great with the trance instrumental here. This all culminates in a great high-note and instrumental drop. It took me quite long to get around to it, but Poison Love is easily my favorite song on the album.

Rating: 8.75/10

4 Memory

When I saw the title, I was hoping the song would be a tribute to F(x)'s modern classic 4 Walls. unfortunately, 4 Memory has an instrumental stuck with 2017 trends. It is not good that I quite literally was able to predict the song's every moment on the first listen. The girls give it their all, but it is hard to ignore how by-the-numbers the song is. At least the occasional strings, high-note, and guitars are good.

Rating: 7/10

New Days

This song sounds like an anime soundtrack. While that means it is generic, it fits Dreamcatcher perfectly. The chorus, in particular, has some great vocal moments.

Rating: 7.5/10

Overall Score: 8/10*

A great album, and definitely one of the best from this month. Dreamcatcher has yet to top Tree of Language or Raid of Dream. But still, Road to Utopia is great.

* Rounded rating, the actual rating is 7.9.