The Glass Set's new CD Something Unknown is simultaneously disarming and transcendent. Pop hooks transform into the warmest atonal motifs you’ve ever heard. Catchy choruses disintegrate into post-rock dark psychedelia and then come back again. Although it stays devotedly in the vein of driving 80s post-punk due to its domination by drummer Allen Esser's Can-by-way-of-Joy Division beats, this band cannot escape both the influence of 70s New York no wave bands and 80s dreamy shoegaze. Songs like the title track Something Unknown and Never Happen express the age-old theme of unattainable love with every ounce of the bands energy, making glorious noise in the process. And not to be chained by genre, the track Bike City gives pop brainy attitude with its tongue-in-cheek vocal refrain repeated by a feedback induced keyboard, and lyrics that express a love/hate relationship with money and the desire for it.
Lyrics, rhythms and guitars channel the honest, no holds barred soul searching of bands like the Comsat Angels and Chameleons. And melodies – not egos - dictate here. The CD ends with a song written at the end of the recording session entitled I Am A Camera, a blissful ride through a fantastic reality. This song, with its dynamic guitar crescendos and rolling drums is the highlight of the CD. The Glass Set is: vocalist Leah Callahan (Betwixt, Turkish Delight) drummer Allen Esser (Primitive Romance, Drumming on Glass, Ceramic, Soil, Transmission, Midnight Call, the Lakeside Project and Lady of Spain) and guitarist Joel Cohen. Since the CD has been recorded, bassist Daniel Gill (Das Happening, Suicide While Driving) has joined them.