WHOKILLEDXIX's Genre Change Was A Bad Idea, Their Debut Album 'PULLBACK' Was A Flop

    Back in mid-2020 whenever I heard the song 'Kismet' by XIX (as they were called before changing to Whokilledxix or some reason) I knew to keep my eye on any of their future endeavors from then on out. Musically I was also very inspired, and even I wanted to make songs that sounded like theirs to be honest. The style was very cool, though they didn't invent the hyperpop type style and music they put out themselves, they were one of the most eccentric in the scene for sure. Their first major EP they released in late 2020 '19' to me was an incredible project. The first song, 'Nokia Barz' from that EP became one of my most listened to song on Spotify the next year in 2021 when it was time for the yearly wrap up; I liked all the other songs besides the last track Bosozoku; I love Whokilledxix but they're weebs and the fake British accent thing Karm was doing when he was rapping/singing on Bosozoku was unbearable. The rest of the project was great though.

    Ever since XIX started out, they've always shown that they love some aesthetics to metal and rather death metal music by sometimes using screams/growling vocals and of course, the electric guitar. On some songs like 2021's 'On My Vans', which was produced by XIX member Karm The Tool, he somehow managed to use and make FL Slayer sound kind of good. FL Slayer is that extremely cheap and mostly terrible sounding electric guitar plug-in in FL Studio that requires no real guitar or talent. That's not to say that Whokilledxix doesn't know how to play instruments, because they do show that side of them in one of their newer singles music videos 'Migraine', a video that at some points references Blink 182's 'What's My Age Again?' but in a more awkward way. They didn't mean to make it more awkward, it just comes off that way. But never mind the video, the song really isn't good if you're above the age of 20 years old. The lyrics, nasally vocals, and pop-punk-hop feel just doesn't mix for me. I didn't even know that their album 'PULLBACK' has come out, I guess it came out October 28th, I'll go listen to it and come back to this rant on their sudden genre change. Let's see if it really has fully changed to pop-punk. I see the song 'Anxiety' is on there, and I reviewed that poorly a while back so here goes nothing.

WHOKILLEDXIX, via YoursTru.ly

    Well, I'm back. Listened to some tracks, skimmed through some, and all I can say from my personal opinion is just "no". A big fat ass "no" at that. So, the first track, 'help', is nearly reminiscent of some old school hip-hop and in my opinion is the second only good song on this entire 40 minute debut album. The other track that I'd consider worthy of a second listen is the track 'lovestory' which is the second to last song on the album. That means you have to sit through really bad angsty pop-punk with just a little trap influence to them, especially in terms of vocals, when they aren't wheezing perturbated cliché pop-punk lyrics from their noses or sore throats, they will sometimes start spitting rap bars about how you suck.

    The entire middle of the album is about 30 minutes of pop-punk, that's basically what I'm saying. And not only does each song nearly sound the same, it's incredibly hard to get into any one of them either. Unlike most of the pop-punk we all know and love from the late 90's and early 00's that was usually always quite catchy, almost none of these songs have an original catchy quality to them. I felt like I had heard the track 'Migraine' about eighteen years ago on the radio when XIX first learned how to use toilets. To be honest, Tom DeLonge just rejoined Blink 182 and they released the song 'EDGING' which has gone quite viral and I'd rather listen to it instead because it's not straight up pop-punk to the core and it has that classic Blink 182 sound of Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus' entwining vocals and Travis Barker's eclectic and sharp drumming that always gave Blink something that most other groups don't have, a true backbone.

    If you can't tell by now, I just don't like their sudden change of sound and cringey pop-punk hybrid songs they're starting to shove out in everyone's faces. Just because you have the ability to do something doesn't necessarily mean you should do it? Just food for thought.

WHOKILLEDXIX - PULLBACK
2.3/10 - the Glue Bottle