EP REVIEW: We’re Going To Hell For This… – TX2
It feels like not that long ago that TX2 dropped their song I Would Hate Me Too, a smarmy rock song that sported the infamously ridiculed lyrics “I’m a 5’4” man whore who slit his wrists/Yet a hundred thousand kids out there think that I’m the shit”. The song was something of an internet punching bag for a while, and it seemed that TX2’s success would be limited to this moment – a desperate bid for alternative TikTok teens’ attention that received the exact opposite reaction that was intended. That couldn’t have been more wrong. TX2 have not only continued to release music, but have gained enough of a status to collaborate with more well-known acts such as ICE NINE KILLS and BLACK VEIL BRIDES. The band also boasts over 800,000 monthly listeners. Their new EP, We’re Going To Hell For This…, serves as a follow-up to End of Us, their debut album from earlier this year. Every second of this project exhibits a profound lack of growth from the band since their first glimpse of mainstream attention.
In many ways, TX2 almost serves as a left-leaning foil to FALLING IN REVERSE. Where the latter band haphazardly smashes together metalcore, rap, and alternative rock into screeds against “woke” culture, transgender people, and “the system” in some generalised way, TX2’s lyrics are far more progressive- lead singer Evan Thomas sings about the stigmatising of queer people, government corruption, abusers, and overpolicing. You’d inherently rather listen to music that espouses sane opinions than angry right-wing ranting, but unfortunately, like FALLING IN REVERSE, TX2 utterly lacks any sense of taste. No early aughts alternative subgenre is safe; metalcore, emo, rap rock, and ska are thrown into the mix at random and vomited out into horrible concoctions for the listening pleasure of…someone, surely.
Opener The Human Disease is a perfect example of why the line of melodrama in alternative music is a fine one. Bands like MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE and PIERCE THE VEIL certainly received flack in their day for whiny vocal performances or “edgy” lyrics, but the fact is that those bands were able to earn their theatrics through tight playing, great instrumentals, and impressive singing and screaming, as well as more poetic lyricism than their contemporaries. Whether or not you enjoyed their music, it was hard to deny that these bands were elevated above the rest through their genuine musical talent. The Human Disease takes a big swing for the fences with its lamentations of the state of humanity and its attempt at a grand chorus, but it falls on its face at every turn. The production lacks any sort of bite or personality (this holds true across the entire project), the lyrics are bland and vacuous, and Thomas’ vocal performance is utterly grating. The track ends up as some sort of clunky attempt at an 80s power ballad.
Confession is an unbearable piece of rap rock in which Thomas and bassist Corky exult in their sexual preferences and preferred kinks. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but the delivery is so obnoxious and begging for right-wing controversy that it becomes unlistenable. No song should start with a fake confession to a priest and then go on to say, “Priest, I gotta make a confession/I got an ugly obsession with getting fucked/And dressing up in a black lace lingerie, skirt with boots”. It comes across as performative sexuality that wants to instigate pearl-clutchers but instead feels utterly un-self-aware. The chorus isn’t much better than these try-hard verses, consisting of limp screams that are hardly any better than the clean vocals. There’s also a shoehorned in breakdown at the end for a flaccid attempt at a moshable moment. Obviously, sexuality and kink are not topics that should be taboo or silenced. However, there are numerous songs about these subjects that don’t come across as attempting to be edgy or offensive, and, to that matter, are more listenable.
Evil Is Contagious is a stomach-churning ska track (with contributions from REEL BIG FISH) that attempts to lampoon bigots as being products of abuse or closeted homophobes for their targeting of minorities. This whole brand of humour feels so outdated and ineffectual. The roots of bigotry can stem from these causes, but this sort of surface-level bear-poking of prejudice feels like a high-schooler who just started to gain a political consciousness. I’m not saying that any band trying to make political commentary needs to write at the level of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE or SYSTEM OF A DOWN, but this sort of childish teasing is hardly an interesting angle. The uptempo, horn-infused instrumental doesn’t do this song any favours, even if it is a change-of-pace of sorts.
The lone ballad of the album, I Know What You Did, is maybe the most sonically inoffensive song, and its lyrics about holding sexual abusers accountable are certainly a good sentiment. However, it’s held back by the same problems as everything else on the album. It’s perhaps less outwardly embarrassing than the rest of the EP’s material, but that’s not saying much.
We’re Going To Hell For This… concludes with Pickup Truck, which would be more appropriately-titled as “Car Crash”. It’s another swipe at rap-rock, this one sounding-like LIMP BIZKIT writing an industrial-tinged anthem at the current state of the US. However, Thomas is no Fred Durst (despite his vocal delivery on “I’m a crazy motherfucker with a pickup truck!”). This song is just more cringy political jabs, with Thomas acting like some sort of dangerous whistleblower who isn’t afraid to speak the truth. He mentions the Epstein List, police brutality, and even dares to go for an eye-roll-inducing Charlie Kirk name drop. After seeing numerous bands receive real censorship and government mistreatment for their voicing of support for Palestine these past few years, this sort of sentiment just feels, again, entirely performative. Yet again, whilst you agree with the general takes being espoused here, they are packaged so embarrassingly that you can’t give it any more credit than that.
There’s very little to take away from this EP. At best, it could help to show some “alternative” teenagers the light on some political issues, but even that feels like giving it too much credit. This album feels engineered to anger conservatives and validate liberals, and it doesn’t have enough genuine bite to do either. If this band is an indicator of where alternative music is in the mainstream, we need a course correction fast.
Rating: 2/10
We’re Going To Hell For This is out now via self-release.
Like TX2 on Facebook.