I Will Be Nothing Without Your Love

The Ready Set's third album, I Will Be Nothing Without Your Love, charts another step in Jordan Witzigreuter's progression away from emo pop toward a sound that mostly does away with the emo portion of the equation. He's fully embraced electronics to the point where guitars are almost fully excluded, coming off at times like a Hot Topic version of Panda Bear, if Panda Bear was a secret fan of mainstream radio pop. There's nothing on the album that would feel out of place on a song by any number of artists chasing the top of the charts, from the bubbling beats to the sunny outlook. Witzigreuter succeeds at the game by being twice as hooky as other wannabes. His innocent and elastic boy-band-next-door vocals match the carefully crafted arrangements like they were meant to be 2gether 4ever, his lyrics touch on pain, but in a harmless, easy to swallow fashion, and the sleek production goes down smooth but never sounds plastic. Songs like the title track or "Swim" are instantly memorable; others like "Fire in the Sky" and "Run with Me" have a winning, yearning quality, and even the songs that don't stick right away still sound good. The record is loaded with the kind of catchy, simple to digest, feel-good pop that has sounded good since the beginning of recorded music. I Will Be Nothing Without Your Love is the the Ready Set's most impressively Pop record yet and shows Witzigreuter is well on his way to become a hidden master of the form. ~ Tim Sendra