The Death Set “Michel Poiccard”

The Death Set’s latest album Michel Poiccard takes it’s name from Jean Luc-Godard’s main character in 1960 film Breathless. In it, Poiccard comes to a fateful ending much like, although unsimilar in circumstance, to Beau Velasco – former member of the band who died in 2009 from an overdose. The album is hyped as a celebration of Velasco’s life and perhaps the speed it which he lived it. The songs from the treble-heavy punks barely slow down (there’s two songs which reach the three-minute mark) but clearly take influence from elsewhere. Original member Johnny Sierra worked with longtime band members Daniel Walker and Jahphet Landis on the album and eventually got Spank Rock collaborator XXXchange on board to produce it. The results are varied – the electropunk fuzz of  songs like ‘We Are Going Anywhere Man’ come off the best but ‘Can You Seen Straight’ sounds a little too close to late 90′s/early 2000′s alt-rockers Placebo. Try not to take them too seriously. [C+]