TXT’s Blue Hour and its accompanying album, ‘minisode1: Blue Hour’ is easily one of my absolute favourite comebacks in recent memory. It’s an extraordinary piece of work, bursting with character and consisting of an all killer no filler tracklist that’s only gotten better with time. As such, my expectations for ‘minisode2: Thursday’s Child’ were through the roof. As such, despite its many strengths, lead single Good Boy Gone Bad initially comes across as rather underwhelming.
Now I must stress that underwhelming in no way means bad. Sure, when compared to the likes of Blue Hour, I Know I Love You and LO$ER=LOVER it falls short but those are all songs that I consider to be perfect. In fact, if taken by itself, Good Boy Gone Bad is actually pretty damn great. It’s aggressive guitar riffs are thrilling, building on the sounds of their past two singles and imbuing the general soundscape with an added sense of grit that makes the entire track feel alive. The opening few seconds are especially thrilling, layering anthemic chants over a blistering guitar riff. The verses are similarly exciting, harnessing a percussive backbone akin to last years great Frost to lend them a great sense of energy. The melody counters this, offering a darker, more messy, aggressive sound that perfectly contrasts the surprisingly funky backings. And when the song opens up during the airy and rather eerie pre-chorus, the shift feels perfectly earned. It’s a great addition, giving the listener a small break before the explosive chorus. The calm before the storm you could say.
And boy does the chorus hit like a full on typhoon. The guitars are turned up 100 and the chanted hook comes flying in like a tonne of bricks. It’s not the most engaging of melodies and its repetitive nature isn’t what I usually like but for some reason it just works. I’m still not the biggest fan of the post-chorus though. It’s a little too repetitive for me and I really wish they had injected some more melody into the fray here. But in the end I think the performance is what stands out to me the most during the chorus. I love the energy and sheer commitment on display here and I think that’s what ends up selling it for me. The boys are clearly giving it their all, perfectly playing off the concept with a performance that exudes the sense of unhinged chaos that it demands.
Verses: 9
Chorus: 8
Production: 9
Performance: 9
Final Rating: 8.75 / 10
KBopped 
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