Beat It Up

The record

Beat It Up is NCT DREAM’s sixth mini-album, released on 17 November 2025 with six tracks. The title track shares the record’s name. It follows the fifth full-length album, Go Back To The Future, by four months, and was the group’s second new release of that year.

The album introduction on Bugs, written by SM Entertainment, says that where the fifth album spoke about the direction of time, this record takes the speed of time as its subject, with a message about moving at a speed of one’s own. The same text describes the title track as a hip-hop track marked by a bold kick and a heavy bass, and introduces two unit songs: ‘Butterflies’, a pop ballad sung by Renjun, Haechan and Chenle, and ‘Tempo’, a hip-hop track by Mark, Jeno, Jaemin and Jisung.

Reviews

Clash published Maria Letícia L. Gomes’s review on the day of release, 17 November 2025. She opened: “On their second release of 2025, NCT DREAM celebrate a true return to form.” Of the record she wrote: “Released on November 17th, the ‘Beat It Up’ mini-album is, from start to finish, meticulously all-encompassing in everything NCT DREAM do best – opening with a solid single, followed by a pop cut, a dreamy R&B moment, two unit tracks and a closing banger.” Clash scored the record 8 out of 10.

Among the tracks

The song Gomes puts first on the record is ‘Cold Coffee’. “It’s time to switch gears with ‘Cold Coffee’, the strongest track in the EP,” she wrote, pointing to the soaring vocals that look back on a love that lasts, and adding: “If the mini album is NCT DREAM’s homecoming, this track is the epitome of it – with a grandiose feel and a chorus you can imagine yourself singing (or screaming) along to.”

Of the title track she noted an intro that lands immediately and wrote that “it’s a stylish hip-hop track, elevated further by an adrenaline-charged middle-to-final section”. On ‘Tempo’, the song the four rappers take, she wrote that it is openly indebted to nineties rap battle tracks and that “their flows lock into the beat co-written by GRAMMY-nominated British hitmaker MNEK, resulting in a confident cut that does a great job of showing some of the members’ clear growth”.

Of the closing ‘TRICKY’ she pointed to an unexpected, bass-heavy chorus and a rap-led bridge before writing that “it closes the release on a high note, leaving you wanting more”.

Around it

With this record, NCT DREAM put out two new releases in 2025: the fifth full-length album Go Back To The Future in July and this mini-album. The rest of the discography is gathered on NCT DREAM’s page.