Eight tracks, twenty-five minutes, and a title that doubles as a thesis statement. On August 7, Stray Kids released their tenth mini album, THIS & THAT, and the record makes its point almost immediately: rather than picking a lane, the group is claiming all of them at once.
The rollout leading up to release only reinforced that idea. Stray Kids first teased the era back on June 21 with a trailer revealing a double-release plan, then delivered the brass-driven opener “RUN IT” on June 24 as a kind of victory lap — a track that traces the group’s journey from a pre-debut practice room to arenas around the world, eight years into their run. THIS & THAT arrived as the second half of that plan, landing exactly on schedule and immediately becoming the group’s most tonally varied release in years.
That variety is the whole point. Where recent Stray Kids singles like “MANIAC” and “Chk Chk Boom” leaned into maximalist, high-intensity production, the title track “This & That” pulls back into something far more relaxed — a statement of confidence built on ease rather than volume. It’s a notable shift for a group that built its identity on relentless energy, and it sets the tone for a tracklist that refuses to commit to a single genre.
From there, the album swings hard in every direction. “After You” trades that laid-back opener for glossy electropop heartbreak. “FARMING,” meanwhile, is the record’s strangest swing — a restless, experimental cut built around Felix’s low baritone and internet-slang lyricism that tackles modern hustle culture head-on. “I Do” and “Way Out” pull things in yet another direction, with the latter leaning into R&B for what plays like a smooth, unhurried goodbye. The album then closes on “Back Then,” its longest track at just under four minutes, a nostalgic, faintly melancholic song written entirely by HAN that carries a distinct ’80s tilt rarely heard elsewhere in the group’s catalog — before one final loop back to the title track in festival remix form.
As always, the record runs through 3RACHA, the in-house production trio of Bang Chan, Changbin, and HAN, who’ve written and produced the bulk of Stray Kids’ discography since debut. Their fingerprints are all over THIS & THAT‘s structure: eight songs that move through ambition, love, separation, memory, and self-determination without ever repeating the same mood twice.
Here’s the full 8-track lineup, with lyrics linked as they go live:
The release comes with the usual full-scale rollout: a lighting event at Namsan Seoul Tower on release night, music show promotions running August 7 and 8, a fanmeeting the following day, and a slot at the 2026 SBS Gayo Daejeon Summer show on August 9. A pop-up store commemorating the album runs through August 20.
Between “RUN IT” and THIS & THAT, Stray Kids have used this era to make a fairly direct argument: eight years in, they’re not interested in being boxed into one sound. Whether that pays off with the same commercial and critical momentum as Karma remains to be seen, but the group sounds more comfortable stretching in every direction than they have in a while.
