From the shallow depths of the gutter punk scene in Charm City by way of Gold Coast, Australia, The Death Set has exploded through college radio waves nationwide. Their two-minute bursts of song have a patchwork of influences, like Devo-style New Wave, pop, hardcore, lo-fi punk and electronica, and not a little of the braggadocio of hip-hop.
Hyped as the “Best Live Band” by The Baltimore City Paper, The Death Set formed in 2005 and has developed a way of performing that effectively illustrates their abandon. They play in tight spaces—often at warehouse or rooftop parties—on the floor, at crowd level. It’s common at performances to see screaming fans inches away from their faces and instruments, adding to their noisy and reckless song construction. But The Death Set is successful in countering that noise and recklessness with just the right amount of accessibility. If it weren’t for the drum machine- and keyboard-laden tracks in combination with lyrics sung in a teasing, sing-song manner or shouted in an almost retro-punk fashion, they might be too hard to listen too. As it is, they’re hard to swallow, but that’s what makes them so much fun.
Sept. 19, 8 p.m., free, the Commonwealth Room, Student Union Center, UMass-Amherst, (413) 545-2511, www.wmua.org.