After a mini-break from tiredness and feeling unwell, I am back to finally review the new releases that started off this week. First up is Glitch Mode, the title of both the lead single and second studio album from NCT DREAM. Without a doubt. 2021 was an extremely big year for the NCT subunit, who returned with their Hot Sauce and Hello Future hits (along with participating in NCT 2021 promotions). It is definitely going to take a lot of work to replicate or even exceed the success of their 2021 promotions. But it appears that NCT DREAM is already outshining their last comeback, with reports that Glitch Mode has already outperformed their personal records for best first day sales and pre-ordered album sales.

I found Glitch Mode to be an alright song. Not too bad, but not that great either. I found the instrumental of Glitch Mode to be lacking substance and oomph. Described as a hip hop dance song, there were some good moments within the instrumental, such as the retro arcade accompaniment they had in the pre-chorus section and the awesome/powerful sounding rock-based dynamic dance break (which was the highlight of Glitch Mode for me). However, the rest of the instrumental felt mediocre and boring. Had there been that substance and oomph as mentioned, Glitch Mode‘s instrumental could have been more fulfilling. But sadly, the version we got was not the case. This issue then flows onto other elements of the song, such as the rapping, which needed that oomph to be more powerful sounding. The vocals, on the other hand, faired a bit better. But they too could also have been enhanced by what I mentioned already. As for the chorus, I don’t mind it as much. Sure, the shouty nature is becoming a cliché for them. But in the first half of the chorus, I thought it was fine. I just wished they changed it up in the second half of the chorus to be a bit more melodic and vocally driven. That would have made Glitch Mode more interesting. Overall, Glitch Mode wasn’t as exciting as I hoped it would been, but it was a fair comeback nonetheless.

Compared to the song component of the comeback, the music video receives a better review from me. I liked that despite the group went with a video game store concept for this comeback, they managed to incorporate the ‘glitch mode’ that they sing/rap about in the song when you are in front of the person you like. It adds an extra level of depth to a pretty random setting that I didn’t think was possible for this video. The icy end to this video was also bit random, but I guess we can say it is a ‘glitch’. I also liked how their outfits complimented the colours of the scene, which helped make the video look visually appeal.

I quite liked the glitchy party of the choreography, which really shows off their dance skills. They made it look so clean. It is quite clever and probably needed a lot of hard work to get it right, but it pays off. On a side note, Chenle is unfortunately unable to fully participating in the comeback due to an injury. A performance of Glitch Mode released today saw him edited/incorporated into the choreography poorly. I wish that if he is part of the stage performances, that they better incorporated him into the routine (like Felix in MANIAC).

Song – 6.5/10
Music Video – 8/10
Performance – 8/10
Overall Rating – 7.3/10