ALBUM REVIEW: TX2 – ‘End Of Us’

A question for the people who continue to let this keep happening: are you stupid? Like, is your IQ stuck at single digits? Are your basic pattern recognition skills so bad that you can’t clock yet another grift, where a failed-rapper-turned-cartoonish-emo stereotype is plying the most basic, surface-level, borderline fetishistic ‘alternative’ music imaginable? This is no different to mgk, or jxdn, or literally anyone else in that wave who bottomed out as quickly as they came along.

Actually, no—this is different. This is a lot worse. See, with that lot, if you squinted and looked hard enough from the right angle, you might’ve made out a modicum of a cell of intent. TX2, however—the eponymous band and sobriquet of one Timothy Evan Thomas—are here to ragebait more than anything else. Frustratingly, they’re excellent at it. A reputation for skin-crawlingly awful TikToks and Reels has preceded them to no end, as has their flanderisation of emo culture that, despite no one with a semi-functioning brain being able to take this seriously, has seen success. Nevertheless, this sort of thing should’ve never broken containment, under any circumstance. It’s only one step away from the “What if [insert artist] were emo” / “DiD I jUsT wRiTe ThE nExT eMo AnThEm?” crowd believing they have worth, artistically or otherwise.

With TX2, though, Thomas has found ways to weaponise the fact you’d want to throttle him at any given moment by including it in the music itself. The result is the most insincere, emo-by-aesthetic schlock imaginable, where genuine trauma that may have inspired a kinship with this style is codified and astroturfed for Reels snippets. The allegations of plagiarism are bad enough, but dragging down My Chemical Romance and The Used to fuel your dress-up day, swallowing any reverence in braying noxiousness? Yeah, to anyone who knows what they’re talking about, that’s pretty inexcusable. And, of course, it’s cringe all the way down. Past gems include I Would Hate Me Too, AKA ‘The One Where He Calls Himself A “Five-Four Man Whore”’, and Vendetta, borne from an influencer’s mild criticism where the proportional response is to tell them to kill themselves (sorry, TikTok children—‘‘unal1ve’ themselves’).

As you can see, we’re off to a fucking flyer with this one… Oh, but it doesn’t stop there! Apparently, TX2 also have the power to instigate mass psychosis, as there’s no other reason for them to have backing like this. They’re currently having their work released through Hopeless Records (how appropriate…). Magnolia Park and Ice Nine Kills and Black Veil Brides have happily put themselves through the humiliation ritual of appearing in TX2’s vicinity. For some reason, there’s been inexplicable man-power put behind validating them as something you’d consume in the wild, not just an irritant that lives in your phone and who you can swipe away at a moment’s notice.

And in an unthinkable display of self-awareness hitherto unseen, TX2 actually seem to be trying to help themselves with that. For the most part, End Of Us seems relatively straight, albeit in a way that still couldn’t be more mercenary in its nabbing and commodifying of 2000s emo and post-hardcore. It’s still bad, then, but not as sinful as some of their past ‘efforts’. Not gonna lie: that’s a little disappointing. This was the easiest lay-up in the world, primed for a quick-and-dirty crucifixion with probably some expletives left in. Alas, this is not that. No, in truth, the badness exhibited by End Of Us itself is a lot more unremarkable, and a lot more…ordinary.

Not for all of it, though, and if there were more songs like Nice Guy, this would be a far more disastrous trainwreck. It’s the mugging, crowing waste of studio time and resources we all expect from TX2. Listening is like reconnecting with an old friend with whom the extent of your relationship is bullying them mercilessly. Except, when Thomas tries to be in on the joke, it’s not as funny. This time, he’s not a man-whore but still references his height, lampshading the meme to top this self-described “self-aware jab”. Reckon that’s also the excuse for horrid rapping in White Boy Flow™️? Or the cochleal assault committed every time he hee-haws the word “guy”? Probably. That’s the beauty of TX2’s worst: it might be irredeemable horseshit, but it’s ironic, so that makes it okay! Get it?

Well, if you can resist ironically slamming your face through a table after this being just the second song, you’ll find that Thomas doesn’t get much more bearable. Yes, he becomes an actual singer instead of a gurning clown, but there’s an exhausting energy around him crowbarring himself into an ‘emo icon’ position. It’s the same thing you got with Yungblud when he first started—rampant main character syndrome disguised as more, but producing significantly less. There’s the sordid, heavily Americanised curl of emo leaders two decades ago, now made to seem as performative as possible with how over-sung it is. A song like Lost Souls—a shameless grab for Gerard Way-style mania—is overwrought to the extent of feeling like a mockery of this style, not paying homage to it.

The overall game plan of End Of Us, however, almost seems to be leaning into that to launder effort. TX2 feel dead-serious about what they’re producing here, but how far does that actually go? After all, there’s a difference between screaming and crying over a litany of unchanged emo tropes to feign their importance, and actually having that be tangible. HOSTAGE (they will not erase us) is supposed to be standing up for persecuted LGBTQ+ communities, but in being comprised entirely of vagueries that could apply to literally anyone, it becomes another bog-standard ‘anthem for the outcasts’. Additionally, the album is littered with faux-edge that’s not possible to take seriously in the least. Not even in a mocking way; the destructive relationship dynamic of Feed and the angry callout of The Rain will leave you with glazed-over eyes, not anything impassioned.

At least the sound of End Of Us is okay. It’s the one area where TX2 do deserve some legitimate praise, for generally taking what worked about 2000s post-hardcore and carrying it over smoothly. It’s a shock, but credit where it’s due—production-wise, there’s some satisfying crunch on display. Hell, Die Alone might even be genuinely good for how bracing its replica of that Warped Tour wave is.

But this is TX2, at the end of the day, an outfit for whom wanting consistent good is pushing it to the extreme. The hole-digging begins in earnest with the assessment of “punk meets vampire-core with an Eminem edge” (hope you’ve got a sick bucket handy after reading that one), essentially confirming aesthetic as the primary motivator. And in true TX2 fashion, that amounts to disguising their own lack of ideas with a whole host of rip-offs. Feed is Bad Omens; Lost Souls is blatant My Chemical Romance; M.A.D. is Ice Nine Kills, though the presence of Spencer Charnas on here acts as unearned permission to make this watered-down INK (so to speak). (At least it’s not outright theft this time, but still.) The single sliver of uniqueness comes on 6 Shots Left with its mariachi horns, because…it’s sorta cowboy-themed? That’s the level of creative preeminence we’re working with here…

But let’s just step back and take a broader look at what’s here for a second. We’ve got uncreative emo imitations where the fidelity is the best part. We’ve got a jackass frontman who salts his obnoxious delivery with ill-advised rapping. We’ve got songs claiming grand consequence and being laughably unable to back it up. We’ve got a random western-leaning number, apropos of nothing. …Is this not just a mirror of Falling In Reverse? Even down to how laughable easy targets have been sanded back into something ‘better’ being the exact pipeline from Fashionably Late to Popular Monster? If so, that leaves TX2 as an even more shameful prospect. As someone especially outspoken about trans rights and US government corruption, Thomas is the exact sort of person that Ronnie Radke wouldn’t even spit in the general direction of. The whole outlook of TX2 and their provocative, ragebaiting persona simply makes no sense.

When you realise that, it becomes a greater condemnation of TX2 than anything else possibly could. Yes, End Of Us isn’t as bad as it could’ve been; no, that doesn’t absolve its creators of an endeavour that, with each new addition to its canon, becomes more inane. There’s, quite literally, without exception, not a thing that TX2 do that you can’t get from someone else. The genuine articles in emo and post-hardcore are still there and exponentially more enjoyable. Even Falling In Reverse come with the benefit of morals congruous with their willingness to grift. The only reason for End Of Us to exist is to paper over the ideologically inconsistent aspects of an act who can’t afford to rectify that entirely, lest their notoriety be jeopardised. And that says it all, doesn’t it? TX2’s only purpose is damage control for their own bad decisions. Not only do they get away with it, but they’re rewarded and celebrated for it. And even if the album in a vacuum is impressively not an unmitigated catastrophe, there’s nothing to endorse about this. It’s just not worth it.

For fans of: having no taste, having no self-respect, Falling In Reverse (which is the same thing as the previous two, but, y’know…)

‘End Of Us’ by TX2 is released on 13th February on Hopeless Records.

Words by Luke Nuttall