Jobie Reviews Music #42: This Will Be the Death of Us (album) - Set Your Goals
- arrangednoisefan
- Jun 27, 2022
- 2 min read
Recommended
This Will Be the Death of Us is a 2009 pop punk album by the American rock band Set Your Goals. It is their second studio album, featuring a staggering number of people who contributed vocals to the album (seriously, there are at least 30 different vocalists listed in the personnel credits for this album!). The sound of the album can best be described as semi-aggressive pop punk (riffs and breakdowns abound), with a few notable exceptions. The track “arrival notes”, for instance, is an instrumental-only, acoustic track. This is the only acoustic as well as the only instrumental song on the album. The track “with hoffman lenses we will see the truth” is a slower track with very little pop punk elements. “gaia bleeds (make way for man” is the most aggressive track on the entire album, with the most intense screaming on the album coming from this track. Unsurprisingly, it is also one of the most heavy songs on the album instrumentally speaking as well. Vocally, the album has a wide variety of different vocalists (and thus different vocal styles). Despite the sheer quantity of vocalists, the vocals manage to compliment each other. Even the background vocals manage to blend well with the lead vocals of Wilson and Brown. As mentioned before, there are no shortage of guest stars on this album, (Vinnie Caruana of The Movielife, Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory, Hayley Williams of Paramore, etc.). The guest performance from Hayley Williams on the track “the few that remain” is perhaps one of the best guest performances on the album; Hayley comes in mid-song, leading the track forward, contributing vocals throughout the track, and joining every vocalist on the track for the final line (“Who's to blame/Tell me who, who's to blame. Take the shame/Now, when the mighty fall from grace?”). It certainly is one of the best parts of that track, and one of the many highlights of this album. Lyrically, the album discusses a mix of two things: life in the music scene, and rebellion. For instance, the song “Look Closer” details the corruption of the government, and even takes lines from the film They Live in order to make its point. I find that most of the songs on the album are pretty well written, with the majority of the songs on the album having variable (non-repeated) verses. My favorite tracks from This Will Be the Death of Us are the tracks “look closer”, “like you to me”, “the few that remain”, and “gaia bleeds (make way for man”. Overall, This Will Be the Death of Us is a great pop punk album. With a semi-aggressive sound (and a few notable exceptions to this fact), a great mixing of vocal styles contributed by around 30 different vocalists, and well-written lyrics that channel themes of rebellion and scene life, this is a solid pop punk album.
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