Set Your Goals: Burning At Both Ends

Set Your Goals
Burning At Both Ends
Epitaph Records [2011]









Fire Note Says: Set Your Goals stays the course with another round of pop punk with an edge.

Album Review:
The duel vocal attack of Matt Wilson and Jordan Brown are back in full force on the new pop punk record from Set Your Goals. It follows the same path as their 2009 record, This Will Be The Death Of Us, as it leaves most of their earlier hardcore moments on the sideline, although they appropriately creep out on power songs like "Illuminated Youth" and "Exit Summer". Set Your Goals still surrounds these tracks with catchy hooks and deliver memorable lines on each song that will leave them in your head. This style works well for Set Your Goals, as they still retain an "edge" to them and still drive home their pop punk core. There is nothing here that most listeners of this genre have not heard before but the presentation is solid and places Set Your Goals at the top among their peers. Burning At Both Ends does not quite have the transitional cohesion that made This Will Be The Death Of Us so great but tracks like the catchy single "Certain", the hard riffs on "Trenches" and even the comical lyrics in "Product Of The 80's" make Set Your Goals a nice change to listen to and will have you believing that pop punk is alive and well.

Key Tracks: "Certain", "Trenches", "Exit Summer"

Bands With Similar Fire:
Crime In Stereo
Sum 41
Anberlin

Set Your Goals: This Will Be The Death Of Us [Fire Note Review 7/31/09]

Set Your Goals Website
Set Your Goals Facebook
Epitaph Records

-Reviewed by Christopher Anthony