By Alyssa Serrano
Staff Writer
Tomorrow x Together consistently puts out incredible music and performances, and their newest album “The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION” is no exception.
Tomorrow x Together is a South Korean boy band consisting of five members that debuted in 2019 under Big Hit Entertainment. “The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION,” which was released on Jan. 28, is part of a series of albums of theirs that share the story of growing up and coming into your own identity. This album really focuses on the temptation to just stay where you are. Many times people feel uncomfortable with taking risks, so they stay in their comfort zone. This in turn leads to them missing out on opportunities to make their goals become a reality. On this album, Tomorrow x Together do a great job of conveying this storyline and making incredible music.
When I first listened to the opening track, “Devil by the Window,” I immediately pictured the scenes in horror movies where a character is running down a dark hallway and you hear their heartbeat going in time with the music. The tone feels dark, airy and mysterious, which builds up a lot of suspense. It’s a perfect introduction to an album that deals with such a complex topic as growing up and finding and developing your identity.
My favorite song of the album, the title track, “Sugar Rush Ride,” is the next song on the album.. This song has a completely different feel to the one before it. It’s incredibly upbeat and leaves the audience feeling euphoric. The combination of the whistling and the beat is infectious and left me looping it for hours.
Tomorrow x Together keeps up the high energy with their collaboration with Coi Leray, “Happy Fools.” I absolutely love Leray’s verse, and I felt like it was a really cute and fun song. The thing that stood out most to me though was the juxtaposition of the energy and the story the lyrics are telling. The song is about knowing you should work and go out and do things, but also wanting to take things easy and enjoy life. This circles back to the overarching theme of the album of fighting the temptation to stay stagnant and avoid change, which I think is really cool.
The next song is “Tinnitus (Wanna be a rock),” and despite having a silly sounding name, it’s really relatable to me personally, which is why I’d say it is a very close second favorite. The song is about wanting to be great and doing incredible things but also feeling burned out and avoiding the change and action that is necessary to reach that goal. It reminds me of how I feel when I have millions of ideas for stories. I always get so lost in the ideas that I never actually move forward and write them out. The juxtaposition between the profound lyrics and the club-like beat makes it really stand out compared to some of the other songs on the album.
The final song, “Farewell, Neverland,” is the perfect conclusion to this album. I love how throughout the album, TXT keeps bringing up the idea of not wanting to grow up and change, but the album ends with them choosing to grow up even if it is scary. This song has my favorite lyric of the album, which in English is translated to, “This is no home. Even if I’m afraid, I’m going down. Farewell Neverland, my love." The sentiment that although growing up is scary, it is a leap that everyone has to take because as humans we are always changing.
I absolutely loved this album. It looks like I am not alone in this sentiment though, considering this album's only just been released and it’s breaking a lot of records. This album has made TxT the 5th kpop group to have an album selling over a million copies on the first day. It has also broken the record for the highest-selling album by a 4th generation kpop group on the first day.
Tomorrow x Together has been making hits since they debuted and this album is no exception. They did an incredible job, and I can’t wait to see what comes next from them.
