Boss Martians

The Set-Up (MuSick)
by CraigRegala

Straight-up chopped-chord power pop from the Who/Faces/Creation beginning to amped-up guitar New Wave era heroes like the The Vapors, Cortinas, and Undertones. These people were probably Jr. High students when Material Issue helped these sounds live in a buncha bands carryin’ the torch through the ’90s – The Heartdrops, Pat Dull and the Media Whores, Manda and the Marbles, hell, the whole Break-Up records crew. The Set-Up moves from Joe Jackson, Buddy Holly, and Dwight Twilly pop into the loud tangents on power moves by Flop, the Fastbacks, The Muffs… you know the good stuff. Nice use of mid-tempos, heart-tugging melodies filched from Rhino’s 15 CD “New Wave” collection, and a great, warm, blaring guitar sound. I hear some of the classic Southern stuff: early Big Star, the dB’s, hell, even Lets Active, which gives these guys a leg up. I’d buy’m all new Chuck’s if they’d cover Def Lep’s “Hello America.”
(PO Box 1757 Burbank, CA 91507)