If I called The Death Set’s music “Girl Scout anthem punk”, that could describe it accurately without giving you any better of an idea of what to expect from their performance at TSI Discotheque this month. But the truth is, I imagine that this band was started by some Girl Scouts that decided to stop scouting, bought a guitar and a Casio and took their high-energy cheer-like anthems to the next level by loading them with angst and playing for college kids all over the country. Of course this isn’t true. Actually, band founders Beau Velasco and Johnny Siera began playing their reckless pop music in Sydney, Australia in 2005 and then relocated to Baltimore after an experimental stint in Brooklyn. The current lineup, according to their MySpace page, also includes Peter O’ Connell, Jahphet Landis, and Joey Sulkowski. None of whom, I suspect, have ever been Girl Scouts.
In some of the album’s tracks, such as ‘Negative Thinking’ as well as ‘Selective Memories,’ this male presence is discernable, but songs like ‘Peak Oil,’ ‘Intermission,’ ‘Listen to this Collision’ and ‘Impossible’ blast this cheerleader punk nuanced by electronic sounds and a driving-but-simplistic drum rhythm.
While their publicist compares them first and foremost to influences such as the Buzzcocks and Minor Threat, the songs that really stand out as belonging uniquely to The Death Set are something a bit more pop. The album could be defined by the punk numbers; songs such as ‘A Day in the Wife’ and ‘Heard It All Before’ are certainly old-school punk influenced. But punky electro-pop songs such as ‘Around the World,’ ‘Superzero,’ and, my personal favorite, ‘Moving Forward’ show a fanciful and ruthlessly danceable Death Set that works just as well on a mix playlist for a friend as they do within the context of this album. It is songs like these that stitch the disparate genres together in a fashion that makes the album feel like an intentionally crafted whole. They tie the room together.
If you are showing Worldwide to someone that has never heard the band, I recommend starting it on ‘Moving Forward’ (track 12) and then just let it play. By the time the song ‘MFDS’ (track 13) comes on, they are sure to ask who this band is, and you get to answer, so appropriately, ‘Mother Fucking Death Set.’ The Death Set are playing TSI on Wednesday, May 7th with Bonde du Role.
Article Published in the May 2008 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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