Song Review:: Doyoung (NCT): PROMISE- PROMISE

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  • Release date: 2025 December 09
  • Album tracklist: PROMISE, Whistle (feat. Belle)
  • Album runtime: 7 minutes

 Serve well, Doyoung. We'll see you when you get back, and your ring will be kept safe by your members.

I'm suddenly grateful that my Korean is still as garbage as it is because I've got a feeling that this song is going to make me cry. This is a beautiful song and a beautiful gift for the NCTzens. The piano takes a quiet center stage at the start, and then the percussion and the strings join. That's the trifecta of instruments as far as I'm concerned. The combination this time around creates a very soft base to cradle Doyoung's voice. It's a lovely song. 

I love it when vocalists get let loose. He's got an incredible voice and I love that his gift to the fans shows that off so well. This feels like a love song, and that would make sense. The idols tend to get very sentimental when it's time to enlist, which is entirely understandable and welcome, honestly, but the form that their songs take is usually pretty different. I mean, look at the difference between his and Jungwoo's and Jaehyun's pre-enlistment songs. Three very different flavors of love song here, which I imagine matches their personalities well. 

Oh, look. It is a love song. And he's playing the piano! Round of applause, good sir. That's great. Using the plant as a metaphor is great because there are so many implied actions with it. Also, the part where he walks through the seasons that he will walk through before he can return to the fans or a girlfriend or whoever is represented by that plant? It hurt me a little bit, but it's so nice to see that acknowledgement that time will pass and there will be a reunion. It'll just take the passing of six seasons before then. 



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