Set Your Goals – This Will Be The Death of Us

I consider pop-punk to be one of my favourite genres of music. In my opinion, the genre is simply fantastic; however, the genre (like so many genres these days) has grown dramatically over the years to the point where the title can fit over a wide variety of styles and sounds, all of which are in some way related to the pop-punk sound but hard to classify as solely pop-punk. This means that while I still hold my love for pop-punk in high regards, I tread softly and only like certain styles of the pop-punk spectrum.

Oddly enough, Set Your Goals is one of those bands that I have no problem enjoying – despite the fact that other bands in their pop-punk offshoot are ones that I often cringe at.

Set Your Goals are one of those hardcore influenced pop-punk bands; a band who picked up where New Found Glory left off and added slightly heavier moments to it rounded with enough melodic moments and pop-punk vocals to still deem it a pop-punk record as opposed to a hardcore record. The weird thing is that most bands who try this style – I’m thinking of Four Year Strong and The Wonder Years – are painful to listen to. Set Your Goals are the anomaly of the style and their sophomore release (and Epitaph debut), This Will be The Death of Us sees a band not only maturing and becoming stronger writers compared to their debut (Mutiny! which was a pretty wicked CD in itself) but a band proving that it is possible to combine hardcore breakdowns and pop-punk vocals and make it work.

Unlike Mutiny! which started with an acoustic track, This Will Be comes blaring through the speakers right away with the heavy title track. A mixture of feedback and frenzied drumming comes through and pulls the listener in right away. At the start, it has the making of a melodic-hardcore song before the dual vocalists of Jordan Brown and Matt Wilson come in; that’s when the pop-punk element breaks through. The track, at times, sounds similar to Gob’s Muertos Vivos record due to the darker guitar work and vocals that sound like Tom Thacker courtesy of I Am The Avalanche’s Vinnie Caruana.

Guest appearances are a frequent occurrence on the record too; a fact that works to the benefit of the record but will most likely be disappointing live. Jon Gula orTurnmoil appears on Gaia Bleeds (Make Way For Man), making the track the heaviest on the record with true hardcore vocals and thundering breakdowns. It may be a little out of place, it still works and could probably be reproduced live quite easily; the same can’t be said for The Few That Remain which features Hayley Williams ofParamore. Her vocals bring the track to new heights, turning it into the highlight of the record and a song that will most likely never be played live with the same valour unless on tour with Paramore. Not done there, the record caps off with another guest appearance from Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory on the 90s skate punk closer Our Ethos.

This Will Be The Death of Us is not necessarily what I would consider a by-the-books pop-punk record but it does work in creating a pop-punk record worthy of repeated listens and comes out better than many of the bands attempting to swim under the pop-punk umbrella.