Review Summary: You win some, you lose some
Sometimes there comes a concept that is just so amusing by itself that one can't help but enjoy it. This was the main appeal of xSPONGEXCOREx; not some ironic 'so bad it's good' type fascination as some are led to believe. Produced by some random dude in his bedroom somewhere in New York,
How Tough Are Yah? released to an incredibly enthusiastic audience from websites like MetalSucks, Metal Injection, Alternative Press, and of course: SputnikMusic. Now it has not even been a month and we are already treated with a sequel by the name of
Don’t Mess with TexXxas. While in some ways it actually "lives up" to its predecessor, if that's even possible, in other ways it completely eschews what made
How Tough Are Yah? so entertaining to begin with.
The biggest difference with
TexXxas and
How Tough Are Yah? is that
TexXxas focuses much less on its novelty and actually goes more for playing the concept straight like it was a legitimate musical project. The easiest place to see this is in just the length of
Texxas. To elaborate:
How Tough Are Yah? only had a length of 5 tracks which combined had a run-time of about 5 and a half minutes, with the longest songs not even reaching the 1:20 mark.
TexXxas on the other hand has a runtime of over 10 minutes and a total of 8 tracks with some even going over the 2 minute mark, obviously showing that the people behind xSPONGEXCOREx want to progress musically. This however can be a huge problem for several fans of the first. After all, XSPONGEXCOREx was little more than a one-trick pony from the start, with its only real hook being its inane concept which was supposed to be laughed at from face value; so, understandably, extending the life of this gag is not going to get xSPONGEXCOREx any fans.
There are some positives to
TexXxas though: mainly the refined production done by Jesse Kirkbride who had just recently worked with Black Tongue. This leads to clearer sampling and a lot more thought being put into the supposedly generic chugs that xSPONGEXCOREx was making fun of in the first place, in turn stripping them of their tongue-in cheek feel that was in
How Tough Are Yah?. And while this is progress music-wise, it's still furthermore wearing the joke thin. Frog
TexXxas isn't quite the final nail in xSPONGEXCOREx's coffin, one can't help but feel that it's being hammered in at the time of this review.
xSPONGEXCOREx’s improvement, musically and production-wise, is both for the better and for the worse. Better as it makes the album more “listenable” compared to the first one; but worse because it now lacks that amateur ‘made just for laughs’ feel that drew so many to
How Tough Are Yah? in the first place.
