Get Set Radio

The New Adventures Of... EP

Written by: PP on 22/09/2008 11:24:45

Guildford, UK based pop punkers Get Set Radio are apparently from the same city where I went to university for four years, which I'm sure isn't just a coincidence. After all, spending a large section of four years in one small city means that you end up knowing the majority of the young population, if not directly, then at least through a friend or a friend of a friend. Nevertheless, I'm pretty glad Get Set Radio sent us their debut EP "The New Adventures Of..." for review, because they possess an immense amount of potential that's just about ready to start a snowball effect, based on the tunes on this EP.

Instrumentally, the band positions themselves somewhere between the simplistic pop punk of Fall Out Boy on "Take This To Your Grave" and the disco-punk of Panic! At The Disco on their debut. In other words, the guitars consist of conventional pop punk riffs and the drumming is characterized mostly by a disco beat pacing the songs along nicely. You can easily make an observation that instrumentally, Get Set Radio aren't exactly the most original or great bunch of guys, which isn't such a biggie considering their unbelievably good vocalist is the soul and heart of the band.

You see, vocalist Will Clements is more or less Patrick Stump^2 / Brendon Urie^2, possessing a ridiculously high vocal range that 99.9% of world's male population can only dream of. On "Jump", his vocal harmonies resemble undeniably like those of Stump on early Fall Out Boy material, both in the form of delivery style (the high pitched croons & extended vocals), and in the form of his great control over the melody. With a fantastic chorus, the song assures every pop punk fan to fall in love with the song, this is pure radio gold right here, on par.. no, wait, better (!) than the "Infinity High"-era Fall Out Boy material already!

But only a couple songs on the EP consist of Fall Out Boy emulation. "Turn Up The Heat", for instance, sees Clements sounding identical to how Brendon Urie sounded on the second half of the P!ATD debut, complete with the rhythm changes and soaring vocals. "This Kind Of Destruction" is another stop on the Panic! train, but comes across as much weaker than the other tracks on the EP. First in the chorus of "Falling By The Dozen" does the band start sounding a bit more like themselves and much less like a FOB/PATD mixture. Their inspirations are still obvious, but at least there's a hint of originality here. The same happens on the final track, "Sacrifice", where Get Set Radio sounds a lot darker instrumentally and Clements vox are angrier, which doesn't really flatter his great range at all, making the song my least favorite on the record.

Overall though, "The New Adventures Of..." EP is amazing on several points. The choruses are infectious, Clements' vocal harmonies are stupendously good, and the band managed to record and put all of this together alone, without any external help. That leaves me wondering how good they might be with a producer... here's hoping for Clements' vocals get recognized soon, because then we might just have another Fall Out Boy phenomenon in our hands.

Download: Jump
For the fans of: Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco
Listen: Myspace

Release date August 2008
UNSIGNED BAND

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