The Ready Set – “The Bad & The Better” [Album Review]

They say variety is the spice of life and well, in the past week or two, my editor has had me review doom, sludge, metalcore and now this, a sickly pop album. I’m also listening to this while I’m editing a set of Slayer photos. I’m clearly not the target audience for this album or maybe my editor likes a joke because I’ve yet to hear a more bland, inoffensive, forgettable album than this one.

The accompanying biog claims that Jordan Witzigreuter has been writing “illegally catchy hits” since he was twenty and while there is no getting away from the infectious pop hooks that litter this album, there is also no avoiding the fact that this chart-bothering, Maroon 5 supporting pop is just very forgettable. With guitars turned down to zero and sickly smiles turned up to eleven, The Bad & The Better is happy, nice, bouncy pop music aimed at that audience of teenage girls who stopped going to Warped because metal bands scare the shit out of them.

As the album progresses, things become almost as irritating as they do bland with the electro pop bollocks that is “Fangz” just summing up everything that is not good about The Ready Set. From the nasally, over-processed vocals to the stomach-churning lyrics to the ready for radio pop that makes Simple Plan look like Deicide, The Ready Set should be congratulated on producing an album so devoid of passion and life it makes you wonder if the whole thing is some manufactured joke?

The album closes with a nauseating song called “Give Me Your Hand (The Best Song Ever)” clearly a bold statement from Witzigreuter and one that results in me quickly deleting this album off my iTunes library. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate good pop music but, sadly, The Bad & The Better doesn’t fall into that category as there are much badder and certainly much better albums out there than this cacophony of pop nausea.

Track Listing:

01. Higher
02. Freakin Me Out
03. Are We Happy Now?
04. Fangz
05. Carry Me Home
06. Luxury
07. Bitter and the Sweetness
08. Don t You Need Me
09. Bleeding
10. Castaway (featuring Jake Miller)
11. Give Me Your Hand

Run Time: 39:48
Release Date: May 27, 2014

Check out the song “Higher”