Do you remember the first time you heard a song with a bad word in it? The thrill of it all? The realization that music could be more than well produced songs about reasonable people loving other reasonable people? For me, it was Blink 182’s “Dude Ranch,” which I discovered in the sixth grade. This marked the beginning of a series of failed classes and a few detentions after I called a fellow student “dick lips.” The album was everything I ever wanted to be, and so, I dedicated much time to adopting the mannerisms of my heroes by air rhythm guitar-ing in front of the mirror the entire album through every day before school and then swearing like a pre-pubescent sailor during recess. It was bad times at home, but probably some of the happiest times outside.
“Rad Warehouses to Bad Neighborhoods,” released on Counter Records as a collection of the first two EPs by Australian natives Death Set, gives me the same rush, inspiring me to argue with my parents and fail pre-algebra all over again. It’s fun, fast and immature with its electo-punk riffs and audio samplings of various clips including a man saying “son of a bitch” followed by canned audience laughter. The album is nothing short of a junior high schooler’s wet dream. I mean, the start of the album is a guys distorted voice saying “SHIT” then a countdown to some seriously infectious pop punk crunchiness in “Paranoia.” And that’s just the beginning of a 23 track long somersault down terrace hill.
But just like a somersault down terrace hill, it is fun the first couple of times, but eventually, the amount of neck injuries and fox tails are going to get to be too much for one day. Kind of like the entire Blink 182 discography that I still proudly keep on my iPod, this album tires me out. By the time I got half way through “Fighting for Herself,” I really wanted some Gatorade, cookies and a nap. It’s the kind of thing that if you listen to the album all the way through, you’ve turned the volume down too low. But when you pick it back up again, you can’t help but crank up the jamz high enough to piss off your parents and pogo in your bedroom, only singing the parts that say “Fuck that” and “I don’t want to be like everyone I’ve liked” in their single “Negative Thinking,” which is featured on YouTube if you want a sample of their sound and see what hipster fashion victims look like.
The album also includes a couple of really fun remixes by other spazzed out artists like Dan Deacon, Best Fwends, and Ninjasonik, which cements Death Set as a legitimate pleasure that you won’t have to defend as a summer favorite.