There is a tiny stage in this east London pub, but the Death Set regard it as far too bourgeois a construct to actually use it. Instead, Johnny Siera and Peter O'Connell set up shop in the midst of the teeming mosh-pit. "The closer you get," Siera coyly advises his flailing fans, "the more fun it is!"Siera and his former cohort Beau Velasco moved from the Australian suburbs to Baltimore two years ago in search of punk-rock kicks. They recorded a thrilling debut album, Worldwide, at which point Velasco quit the band, leaving Siera to replace him with bearded and brooding local guitarist O'Connell.
Worldwide is an extraordinary offering, a frenetic melding of primitive drum-machine beats, fuzzy electronics and distorted guitars over which Siera dispenses feral yelps. Only four of the album's 18 tracks squeeze past the two-minute mark; tonight, most of their garbled explosions seem to be over before they have begun.It is rudimentary, but undeniably effective. Siera is a slight, fey figure, but has the maximum-impact intensity of the young Henry Rollins in Black Flag.Intermission could be The Go! Team infiltrated by Motorhead; for Listen to This Collision, he mounts the amps and swings from the ceiling beams like an Iggy Pop for the era of samples and laptops.After 20 minutes, Siera bids the grinning crowd a camp "Bye bye!" from the heart of the noise assault, and the duo vanish as abruptly as they appeared. They will never last to a third album, and there is no way you would want them to, but right now the Death Set are a quixotic, perfect pop thrill.
