GOLDEN HOUR : Part.3

The record

GOLDEN HOUR : Part.3 is the twelfth mini album ATEEZ released, on 13 June 2025, with five tracks. The title track is ‘Lemon Drop’, and the record is the third in the series that runs from GOLDEN HOUR : Part.1 through GOLDEN HOUR : Part.2.

The album introduction carried by Bugs describes this chapter as “the most instinctive way youth meets its feelings — a journey that comes at the substance of emotion through straying, temptation and being shaken”. The same text sets that journey’s questions as “why does this thirst keep coming back?” and “is this feeling really mine?”, and introduces the title track as “a season song aimed at summer, the first in a long while”.

Reviews

The music webzine IZM reviewed the title track on its single review pages on 24 June 2025. The writer is Yeom Dong-gyo. He calls it “a summer song that reaffirms the identity of rap fused with electronic music”, and, taking up the continuity of the production team, describes it as “the new record’s title track, its consistency secured as an extension of the Golden Hour: Part 2 line-up including the producers Eden and Maddox”.

Jeong Ha-rim of the same outlet reviewed, on 30 September 2025, the repackage ‘In Your Fantasy Edition’, which carries these five tracks at its front. Jeong writes that “ATEEZ, who lay explosive performance over bold electronic music, are K-pop’s leading maximalists”, and finds the point where the series changes direction in the record’s opening half: “having become the first boy band into Coachella and now living through their ‘golden hour’, they turn into something other than usual on this series. The front of the album, which lets go of the force and hands the melody to the voices instead of tearing off gripping a harsh beat, is the evidence.”

Billboard put the title track on its list of the 25 best K-pop songs of 2025, dated 18 December 2025. The entry calls it “a more mature, stripped-down R&B track from ATEEZ, a group well-known for blending the genre with trap, EDM and hip-hop”, and “a distinctly cool and lax track, in contrast to some of the boy band’s boisterous hits like ‘BOUNCY’ and ‘Crazy Form’”. The same entry says the song “was dropped in the heat of the summer, but is decidedly not your usual upbeat, feel-good fare”.

Among the tracks

The album introduction calls the title track, ‘Lemon Drop’, “an R&B and hip-hop track with a cool mood”, and likens its confession to “a lemon drop cocktail, tart and sweet at once”. Billboard reads the song’s manner as of a piece with ‘Ice on My Teeth’ from 2024.

The second track, ‘Masterpiece’, is described in the introduction as a song about “the colour each of us has” mixing into one work that exists only once. ‘Castle’ is where one runs “for a moment to the place that feels safe” to steady oneself and another, and the closing track, ‘Bridge : The Edge of Reality’, is the bridge into the next story.

Numbers

The album introduction carried by Bugs sets out what this record stands on. GOLDEN HOUR : Part.2 before it reached number one on the Billboard 200, and a world tour that ran for one year and two months played thirteen shows across ten North American cities and fourteen across nine European countries after Seoul and Japan. The same text says the 2025 world tour takes in stadiums in five North American cities.

What came next

These five tracks were carried again at the front of the later ‘In Your Fantasy Edition’, which added a solo song for each member. The series continues with GOLDEN HOUR : Part.4 and GOLDEN HOUR : Part.5. The order of the series and the line-up are set out in Who Are ATEEZ?.