Tomorrow x Togetherare all grown up, but they’ve hardly reached their final form.
To TXT fans, known collectively as MOA (for Moments of Alwaysness),Thursday’s Childshould feel like a natural progression of the five-piece boy band’s transition from the sweet concepts of their debut in 2019, through their last record,The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE, which saw them enter a darker, more rock-influenced era — and landed them on the “best album” lists ofRolling StoneandBillboardfor 2021.
The five tracks onThursday’s Childalso continue a storyline set up inChaos Chapterabout a romantic relationship, its pitfalls and now, its aftermath.
“We’re trying to convey the emotions of a boy that just experienced a breakup,” Soobin, 21, tells PEOPLE. And while TXT keep their personal relationships out of the spotlight, Taehyun, 20, admits: “Our music does contain the stories we’ve experienced ourselves,” noting, “It also contains stories that we’ve heard from other people and in media, like movies and dramas.”
The members — which also includes Yeonjun, 22, Beomgyu, 21, and Hueningkai, 19 — contributed to the writing and production of the album, and as a result, Taehyun promises, “it contains our sincerity.”
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The group’s ever-increasing edginess hit what might be a new peak when they droppeda series of teaser clipslate last month in which they donned full leather outfits covered with grommeted straps that quickly set social media abuzz.
“We wore these black outfits and, I’m not gonna lie, there were like dozens of belts all over our bodies,” recalls Soobin. “It’s not an exaggeration, it took 10 minutes to put them on and 10 minutes to take them off. It was a hard process.”
Adds Taehyun, “It does look very different from the aspects we’ve shown before so we were kinda worried if the fans would find us awkward and unfamiliar, but we were really glad that they loved the new style.”
In the video for the album’s first single, “Good Boy Gone Bad,” which dropped early Monday morning in the U.S., the outfits are a little comfier, but the imagery is equally adult. It features the members lurking in dark alleys and making allusions to a failed romantic endeavor as Hueningkai clutches a bouquet in a graffiti-covered phone booth, Soobin punches a mirror, and Beomgyu hurls a teddy bear into a pile of trash.
But fans of warm, fuzzy TXT, fear not. Taehyun tells PEOPLE, “The concepts and music we’re gonna bring in the future are limitless and we’re going to bring as many as possible, so you won’t have to worry about never seeing the softer side of TXT again.”
With the music video pushing nine million views as of Tuesday afternoon, the members are turning their attention to a slew of promo.
TikTok has played a big role in their past success, with their songs becoming viral sounds on the video-sharing platform and the members' own posts garnering likes into the many millions.
Yeonjun, perhaps the group’s most prolific TikTok user, also teased plans: “We’re gonna come up with various challenges, so I hope that it goes viral and people love the trend.” Thefirst one is already liveon their page.
The group has also announced a world tour this summer, with stops in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco and L.A. The live shows are some of their first in two years thanks to the pandemic, and mark only their second tour in the U.S. following a 6-city debut showcase in 2019.
And while they admit there are some nerves among the members about getting back in front of a large crowd, their first live show in Seoul this spring has put them a little more at ease. “For our Fan Live in March, we stood in front of MOA in person and I felt a little bit nervous, but I think the excitement and joy overcame the nervousness,” says Taehyun.
After two years of not being able to experience their fans' support in person, Beomgyu’s hopes for the tour are simple: “I hope to see as many [people] as possible and feel that energy and hear those chants and cheers.”
minisode 2: Thursday’s Child is out now.
source: people.com
