holy shit, the death set.

First of all, today is Fran's birthday. Happy Birthday Fran!


Look, I don't know much about Baltimore other than that a lot of people there apparently sell drugs and get murdered and make fucking crazy hiphop club music. Apparently the two snotty Australians in The Death Set knew something I didn't when they decided to flee from the idyllic-sounding (and -looking, judging from its Wikipedia entry) Gold Coast of Queensland to the streets of Baltimore, but it seems to have turned out for the best, as they've toured with Best Fwends and Bonde do Rolê, been remixed by Dan Deacon, and generated significant local buzz.

Pitchfork didn't love their debut LP, which culls together a lot of the songs from their preceding three EP's, and somehow spent a long time blabbering about their hip hop influences, which aren't to my ears as significant as their brash punk voices and guitar scuzz. Their best song is called "Negative Thinking", which condenses the theme of disillusionment at seeing people you admired give up their old convictions into one immensely shoutable chorus lyric: "In hindsight, I don't want to be like the people I liked." Combine that line with the best delivery of "Fuck that!" in recent memory, and you've got the perfect dance song for when your crowd is too cool to dance to the Black Kids. Listen to this song right fucking now!

The Death Set - "Negative Thinking"

And here are a few more, if you're interested:

The Death Set - "Had A Bird"

The Death Set - "Around The World"