- Welcome to Daytrotter
- We Aren’t Going Anywhere Man
- Can You Seen Straight?
- Slap Slap Slap Pound Up Down Snap
- Negative Thinking
Sometimes the depressives, or those pissed off many have the greatest amount of fun. When you’re able to just not give a fuck, it turns the table on what’s possible and what actually could be attributed to bummer. You’re able to take sour grapes, make and age some wine from them and then drink it down by the jug, getting lit up on it. In such a state, you’re going to smash some heads and fists into shitty and thin walls. You’re going to crash cars. No one has to get hurt in the crashes, but you’re bound to do some vehicular damage when you’re chock-full of such testiness, with that cocktail of complacency, unattained happiness and all kinds of stinkin’ anger. The Death Set, a messy and spitting electro punk band, originally from Australia, but now based mostly in Brooklyn, New York, spoils us with the sorts of sweaty rushes that can come out of distemper and unpleasantness – feelings that they didn’t seem to always harbor, but caught them like a plague sometime as they grew up and into those sad, real-life cruelties. No longer allowed to continue making mistakes at the same rate or able to coast from one party to the next, from one late night to another, without feeling any sorts of consequences, it becomes something of a need to lash out at what’s all occurred right in front of their eyes. Songs off of the trio’s latest album, “Michel Poiccard,” feature the band in a frenzied attitude, looking back a little and offering little hope of changing their views. It’s a feeling of not knowing what happened and therefore, not knowing how to change anything. All they know on “We Aren’t Going Anywhere Man,” is that, “Every single day we made the best mistakes/Some of us just gave in/Some of us gave everything,” and that felt good – much better than anything they’re feeling now. Lead singer Johnny Siera sounds gutted most of the time, but he’s not lowering his head and taking the axe, he’s throwing his hands up and trying to beat the walls down, trying to give everything a good shake. He offers the line, “What the fuck do I know?” and then continues to plow through plenty of examples of things that he thought he knew, feelings he thought he’d once felt and it gives the Death Set its personal, up-in-arms and no one else to be cross with but oneself attitude. Those shitstorms come and go, or they come and stay and they make for wonderfully bitter, tear the joint or the basement down dance music.