The Death Set

There are a lot of nice things being said about these Baltimore by way of everywhere punks, and for good reason: they’re fucking amazing. Combining the band’s first two EPs into one twelve-inch record, this should satisfy fans of this much-hyped band before they make their Ninja Tune debut. With an insanely manic live show (lead singer Johnny Siera is the tiniest, most energetic, coolest dude to ever come out of Australia), the band’s sound is one that, conceivably, could be hard to match in the studio. But from the first spin of "Paranoia,” it’s apparent the band’s sound hasn’t suffered in a more formalised setting. All their Ramones meets a drum machine drenched in beer cheerfulness is intact, and songs like "Collision” pack in all the sing-along melodies of the best Japanther tracks with an even more powerful sense of being on the brink of exploding from too many great times. A few songs here dissolve into insanely annoying drum machine-led messes but when the Death Set focus on writing great punk songs, they write truly amazing punk songs. Here’s hoping their full-length delivers more of that.