ISTJ

The record

ISTJ is NCT DREAM’s third full-length album, released on 17 July 2023 with ten tracks. The title track shares the record’s name. It is the group’s first full-length since the repackage Beatbox in May 2022, one year and two months earlier.

The album introduction on Bugs, written by SM Entertainment, describes the title track as a hybrid hip-hop dance track built on the story of two people of opposite personality types: an ENFP who breaks the fixed frame of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and has their own way of reading an ISTJ. KENZIE is credited as a co-writer and co-composer. The same text groups ‘Starry Night’, ‘Blue Wave’ and the West Coast hip-hop track ‘Skateboard’ as the summer songs on the record, and introduces the closing ‘Like We Just Met’ as the track all seven members wrote together.

Reviews

NME published Carmen Chin’s review on 19 July 2023. She read the title track as pushing its lyric past the stereotypes that usually follow an MBTI reading — the group insist there is more to a person than four letters — and wrote: “It’s what makes ‘ISTJ’ so refreshing lyric-wise.” Of the album as a whole she wrote: “‘ISTJ’ puts on display the sheer versatility of the seven-piece’s ability as musicians and their willingness to explore mixtures of genres and structures beyond the mainstream.”

Jeff Benjamin of Billboard included the record in the outlet’s 25 best K-pop albums of 2023, published on 29 December 2023. Noting that the album takes its name from a Myers-Briggs personality type, he wrote that “NCT DREAM’s third full-length album hardly stays in one sonic or stylistic lane.”

Among the tracks

Of ‘SOS’, Chin wrote that it “is a similarly dynamic hip-hop track and is a contender for best track on the album based on the sleek and immersive instrumental introduction alone”, pointing to the groove of its booming bass line and to a chorus of whisper-raps set against harsh beats. On ‘Poison’ she wrote that “R&B is the most present – and deliciously so – in ‘Poison’”, with synths forming the backdrop for the vocals and harmonies.

‘Broken Melodies’ is the track both pieces stop at. Chin heard an ambitious, glam-rock-inspired song: “The song ebbs and flows with dramatic drum beats and electric guitar riffs, a notable and memorable departure from the sonic landscape we usually associate with NCT Dream.” Benjamin wrote that “the poignant buzz single ‘Broken Melodies’ affirms the unit’s pop prowess”, and mentioned the remix featuring JVKE alongside it.

In the same entry Benjamin called the harmonies of ‘Yogurt Shake’ infectious and lively, and ended on the album’s close, ‘Like We Just Met’, the ballad written by all seven members.

Around it

The next release was the mini-album DREAM( )SCAPE, out on 25 March 2024.