NCT – ’Golden Age’ review: experimental flourishes avoid predictability

31 August, 2023

nct 2023 golden age review

As years go, 2023 hasn’t been an entirely gleaming period for SM Entertainment’s sprawling boyband collective NCT. As well as having to weather the chaos at their agency in recent months, they’ve lost three of their number – Sungchan and Shotaro, now of rookie boyband RIIZE, left in May, weeks after the departure of Lucas. As the many units of NCT regroup on ‘Golden Age’, their annual full-group project, the now-20 member crew look to turn things around.

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Over the last seven years, NCT have become synonymous with bringing an experimental flair to K-pop and ‘Golden Age’ is no different. Across the album’s 10 tracks, the group largely avoid predictable moves to craft songs that keep you on your toes. That much is clear from the very first seconds, when lead single ‘Baggy Jeans’ (performed by Taeyong, Doyoung, Ten, Jaehyun and Mark) enters in a hush of throaty whispers and elastic bass whipping underneath coolly delivered lyrics dripping with swagger.

‘The BAT’ (Taeil, Johnny, Yuta, Jungwoo, Hendery, Jeno and Jisung) delves into hyperpop, positioning the collective as Batman cruising through the night in his Batmobile, setting the story to ominously noir instrumentals. “Yeah Bat’s on wheels / Fill up the gas to the maximum / max go apex,” they chant as the beat teeters and totters beneath them, vibrating like a speedometer needle being pushed into overdrive.

The full group title track, meanwhile, lulls you into a false sense of security with its gentle piano intro, but quickly begins whipping back and forth between those soft melodies and a grinding, industrial-tinged backing. The fact that the piano sections use Beethoven’s ‘Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, “Sonata Pathétique” II. Adagio cantabile’ as their foundation only makes the composition more impressive.

Not every track zips or zooms quite as well as the others, though. ‘Not Your Fault’ (Taeil, Kun, Doyoung, Ten, Jungwoo, Xiaojun and Renjun) feels a little boring compared to ‘Golden Age’’s bolder tracks, swapping NCT’s innate innovations for timelessness. ‘Alley Oop’ (Yuta, Winwin, Hendery, Jeno, Jaemin, Yangyang and Jisung) is more interesting but the brass interjections in its basic beat dilute it to the kind of song that you’ll find blaring out of the speakers in a trashy club on any given weekend.

Still, it’s hard to form a cohesive identity for your group when you have quite so many members and moving parts, yet ‘Golden Age’ feels distinctly NCT. As they refuse to rest on their laurels sonically, the crew also skip through a variety of themes in their words, from brags to Batman, romance to reliance. ‘That’s Not Fair’ (Johnny, Taeyong, Ten, Mark, Jeno and Yangyang) posits that we’re all pretending to be happy, its see-sawing melodies and lowkey delivery capturing both a dystopian feel and a seeming influence from Billie Eilish. ‘Kangaroo’ is much sunnier in both sound and subject, Taeil, Kun, Renjun, Yangyang, Chenle and Jisung bouncing through a perfect summer bop about “running around carefree / I’m trippin’ kangaroo”.

Like 2023 so far for NCT, ‘Golden Age’ is a mixed bag of fortunes. Luckily for the 20-strong experimental force, though, its pendulum ends up swinging in its favour, its tracks mostly pulling off the things they set out to do. Here’s hoping it’s a positive omen as the boyband enters the final phase of this year and a sign of “fantastic, so classic” things to come.