Tebi Rex examine hope in the face of despair on latest single "Deadman"

Tebi Rex, made up of singer Matt O'Baoill and rapper Max Zanga, first burst to the fore with the release of their debut 4-track EP, Welcome To The Darkest Year of Our Adventure in 2018, a pop-centric examination of all of life's follies. The project, and in particular its third track "Men Are Trash", propelled the band to the fore of Irish music’s generation X, a position which was only cemented with the release of the band’s debut album The Young Will Eat The Old in 2019.

Since then, the pair have played festivals across the UK, and were set to perform at Austin’s SXSW festival were it not for the pandemic. “We were at the peak of our music career after about 3 or 4 years of working,” O’Baoil admits of the setback, “it sucks because I really wanted to get a bit more mileage out of the first album. I wanted to do a US tour, a UK tour, and an Irish tour for that album but unfortunately, we didn’t get the opportunity to do that and we probably won’t ever”.

Rather than take a step back and feel sorry for themselves, the duo quickly returned to the studio and put together a brand new body of work to take on the road, the latest track from which is ‘Deadman’.

“Deadman”, a prequel to the pair's previous single “Deadman II” and displays a slightly more positive perspective than its predecessor. It marks a return to the more upbeat and high-tempo beats that saw Tebi Rex rise to the fore of a jam-packed Irish pop scene. The lyrics find the band searching for hope in an era of despair, and doing their best to see the bright side of an ever-worsening situation.

“This is us at our most angry, most frustrated, most hopeless, which is funny because we made sure it sounded really upbeat” the band explained of the track's narrative, “Like someone having a breakdown desperately trying and failing to convince themselves that it's going to be okay.” Tebi Rex keep going from strength to strength,and show no signs of slowing down. Long may it continue.